Tim Kawakami

And here are his some of his l8st comments about our beloved 9ers of 09- kinda long but good read....

Column filed for tomorrow’s paper, or if it doesn’t make it in, then
just for here…

Mike Singletary preached, Scot McCloughan explained, Michael Crabtree
signed, the locker room leaders shrugged, and nothing seemed wrong in
the 49ers universe on Wednesday.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is how playoff seasons feel
and how good teams accept the end of a senseless negotiating standoff.

What the 49ers have going now is bigger than Crabtree, and he must’ve
realized that a few days ago.

Crabtree caved, arrived, got into uniform, and, as Singletary said,
“We’re going in this direction–and everybody that’s not going in this
direction, they’re going to get left behind.”

That’s a team with momentum. That’s a team with a plan, and with their
owner, Jed York, on quite a roll.

Hire Singletary, entrust McCloughan, watch the team start 3-1, hold
your ground on Crabtree’s large demands… Yeah, not a terrible last
year or so for Jed.

Now Crabtree’s in the fold on the 49ers’ terms (six years, about $17
million guaranteed), and he has a chance to develop into a
passing-game difference-maker in a month or so.

All of a sudden, the 49ers look as put-together as they’ve been since
they reached the 1997 NFC title game.

The head coach is as solid as it gets. The GM is gaining stature. The
roster is young and talented and utterly devoted to the big picture.
The young owner hasn’t made a misstep yet.

This doesn’t mean the 49ers are guaranteed a playoff spot. Doesn’t
mean they’ll avoid a major bump—with Crabtree or with someone else—on
the way to January.

They almost certainly will hit a two- or three-game losing streak at
some point in 2009. Maybe at some point some doubt will creep in.

But the Crabtree episode is just another instance of franchise-wide
coherence, patience, confidence and fortitude.

And those are four words not usually ascribed to the 49ers in recent
years, especially not by me.

They were willing to wait out Crabtree. They knew they had to. They
won without him. He came in. Amazing.

Something is happening here. Something big, probably.

“The one thing was nice… there was no panic, from the head coach or
ownership, not one time did they come to me and say, ‘Listen, we have
to have this guy in,’” McCloughan said of the 10-week Crabtree
absence.

“We didn’t want it to come to this, but we were never going to panic.
It’s not about the one individual.”

Of course, for 10 or more weeks, Crabtree’s stance made sure it was
about him, the individual, even though the 49ers seem determined to
take it in stride.

Crabtree didn’t have much to say at Wednesday’s press conference—after
the 2 a.m. agreement—but he surely was trying to sound as
team-oriented as possible.

“This is the team that drafted me, so I watched them very closely, the
intensity they put in every Sunday,” Crabtree said. “I’m looking
forward to play a big role in that offense.”

The 49ers could certainly use a play-making receiver. And the veteran
players said that Crabtree would either earn credibility, or he
wouldn’t.

Time will tell. The locker room leaders—Shaun Hill, Patrick Willis,
Vernon Davis and many others—will tell.

“As his teammates see what he has,” Singletary said, “it’s just matter
of them saying, ‘Hey coach, we need him on the field.’ It’s a matter
of Shaun Hill saying, ‘Hey, he makes us better.’

“That’s when you want a guy on the field, that’s how you have to bring
a guy along.”

hat’s how you set up a winning situation. That situation was already
up and running in 49ers land, with or without Crabtree.

Now he’s with them—funny how smoothly things work when you have the
right leaders, and stick with true principles. You can shock the
world, or at least the cynics.

[ Edited by mac9er on Oct 8, 2009 at 21:38:34 ]