Dear (insert vulgar adjective here): I applaud you for making me look like a genius amongst my friends and coworkers the past few years as you slowly but surely made the San Francisco 49ers the laughing stock of the NFL. Let me go back a few years to clarify. Back when the team was in shambles thanks to the laughable move of hiring Dennis Erickson as head coach and the penny pinching attitude of the new owners, I predicted nothing good would happen to the team until new ownership was installed. My friends all disagreed. They felt in a few years, we would climb back to repectability. They vowed to prove me wrong. First came the hiring of a new coach. Mike "I know nothing about coaching" Nolan. He had roots though. His father brought the franchise to respectability in the 70's or some decade that no longer matters. He could do the same. He's a defensive minded coach that can turn the team around. Nevermind the fact that he had never been an NFL head coach before. Disregard the fact that Dennis Green who was also a product of the Bill Walsh coaching tree was rumored to be interested and definitley available. What happened next was predictable. A terrible season that led to the #1 pick and the start of Nolan's plan to gut the roster and bring in "his type" of guys. Blue collar hard workers. Basically what that meant was sign guys who didn't want too much money and had even less talent.
Then came another mistake that's going to take the team 5 years to recover from. Drafting Alex Smith. We run a variation of the west coast offense. So let's draft a QB who's used to running out of the shotgun formation and turn him into a west coast offense QB. That produced lukewarm results with a below .500 record while Nolan continuously brought in blue collar guys who played hard but couldn't make a play. Note to Nolan and other 49er brass. Alex Smith is NOT a franchise QB. If you waste another year next year thinking he can develop in to one, then might as well throw in the towel for the rest of the decade and watch as we go through season after season of sub .500 ball.
As I sit here at my desk, I relish in the fact that all my coworkers and friends are now realizing my predictions of suckage for the 49ers are coming true. I'm getting the random emails from other die hard 49er fans saying "damn Ken, you were right. Alex Smith couldn't hit the broad side of a barn". Or "Maybe Nolan isn't really cut out to be a head coach". To top it all off, we turned our crappy QB coach into the offensive coordinator. He redefines "offensive". The guy is a joke at calling plays. Early in the season you have your QB attempt less than 20 pass attempts and you expect to climb to respectability?!?! You've got 15 people in the box to stop the run and you still run the ball Go to the nearest clinic and buy yourself a pair of balls.
The icing on the cake is this past offseason when the Niners finally made a splash in free agency, basically signing something like 6 or 7 players of whom only one is worth a damn. My friends all got excited. They told me I was going to be proven wrong once and for all, and we could expect to finish the season above .500. "We'll see" I said. We'll see indeed. We've complete regressed thanks to timid playcalling, shitty coaching and subpar players. I'll give you my two cents. If you want to fix this, here is what you need to two. It's my master plan to bring the Niners back to respectability. I'll even spare getting new owners since we're obviously stuck with the Yorks as the people in charge. I will however make a slight change.
Step 1. Start at the top. Relenquish ownership to your son, which you intended to do in the future anyway. Hope that he is a fan of both the game AND the team enough to make the necessary changes to foster the winning mentality that 49er fans are used to. While you're at it, fire the head coach and offensive coordinator. Mike Singletary should become the defensive coordinator and remain the assistant head coach. There's a reason why that man is in the hall of fame. Take advantage of his skills. Hire an established head coach and OC. Not some home grown or no name coach. There are enough coaches out there unemployed or willing to leave their team for the right opportunity. DO NOT hire a coach from the college ranks.
Step 2. Stop wasting draft picks. Drafting Alex Smith was a monumental mistake. We could have traded down for more picks next year and really fair better than we are right now. Patrick Willis was a great move, but other than that, we've blown ever other pick really. We can keep talking about Vernon Davis all we want but what has he done? Nothing. You can chalk that up to crappy offensive playcalling as well. Then we decided to trade this years 1st round pick to the Pats for Joe Staley. I was 50/50 on that trade when it happened because I never like trading future draft picks because you're just never sure what is going to happen throughout the course of the season. Now we look like a bunch of tools because we are heading for a possible top 5 pick and we've given it away to the eventual Superbowl champions. Don't mortgage this years late 1st round pick and next years for a chance to move up in this draft. As much as I like the top 10 prospects, none of them alone can make a difference. Suck up your mistake and trade down.
Step 3. Unload some excess baggage and past mistakes. Alex Smith is due to make nearly 8 or 9 million next year. I don't know about you, but I am strongly against paying a QB that much money for 2000 yards passing and more interceptions than TD's. Really i'm against paying a guy over 2 million over a year to watch him overthrow and underthrow his receivers, but i'm just picky. Trade him, or unload him. Keeping him another year is only going to set the team back another year while trying to experiment with different things to make him not look as bad as he really is. Release the underachieving offensive line. They spend more time injured than they do playing. That means you Jonas Jennings and strongest man Larry Allen. Get rid of the underachieving WR's while you're at it. Play the ones that could have an impact. I can understand not playing Ashley Lelie who is a deep threat because you don't plan on throwing more than 15 times a game and you know your QB is only going to throw to someone 5-10 yards away because he's scared to lose the game.
Step 4. Sign some players with talent. That means no more signing the likes of Tully Banta Cain and ex Nolan players because they work hard. They work hard because they suck. Sign a free agent QB who can manage the team for a year until you can draft a true franchise QB. He can't be any worse than your current situation at QB. Sign someone on the defensive line that can go after the QB or at least not get overpowered. The DL is basically nonexistent. It's a joke to watch them get manhandled game in game out.
Step 5. Take some risks. You've got the worse offense in the league. You're dead last in yards, points, attempts...hell, I could go on and on here. Go for it on 4th down when you're getting blown out in the 2nd quarter. Tell your QB to stop checking down and throw the ball to a receiver downfield. Go after a free agent who has a checkered past but has talent. Sign another QB who is willing to take a risk if it means giving his team a better chance at winning the game instead of losing it. I'm not saying go after Rex Grossman, but someone like David Carr last year could have helped us. Sign a WR taller than 5 ft. 10 inches. Unless he's Steve Smith, he's not going to be a factor in our passing game unless he has some height. A 5 ft. 9 guy with 4.3 speed does us no good because we're not going to throw deep anyway.
So that's my 5 step plan to bring the 49ers back to respectability. Of course I don't expect the 49er brass to do anything on my list, so I can pretty much count on a sub .500 season for the rest of the decade and possibly early in to the next decade as well.
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