how far away are we....

Originally posted by nw9erfan:
You raise good points here but let's face it Zoners, no team in the NFL these days is strong in all facets of the game. Every team, even the current Patriots, has issues and areas that they would like to improve upon. A team doesn't need to be perfect to be good. However, it does need to have......

1) A head coach that has vision, charisma, intelligence, and is organized enough to get a team ready to play week after week.

2) Solid, experienced, football minds in the front office. I like Baalke as one of the front office guys but the Niners need another more experienced football guy too. Let us not forget that even Bill Walsh also had John McVay.

3) Good OL and DL play. How many times must we stress this? NFL games are indeed won in the trenches and the Niners are losing because they are losing these battles week after week. The Tampa Bay game was a glaring example of this.

4) A creative offensive coordinator. This has been a real problem area for the Niners for many years. Mike Martz was creative but left his QBs too vulnerable to being hit. Mike McCarthy has shown himself to be a good football mind but Nolan fired him after just one year. To me, the vanilla offenses that this team has rolled out over the past few years is particularly shameful.

5) Assistant coaches that can make in-game adjustments and help put together a decent game plan which actually exploits weaknesses that the opposing team has. The Niners haven't had a coaching staff like this since Steve Mariucci's.

6) A real identity... The reason that the Niners were so successful under Walsh is that he gave the team a true identity that was maintained and even enhanced year after year. This team hasn't had a true identity for years. To his credit, Sing did try to mold the team into a "physical with an F" type of team but teams that rely on the run and defense to win games now are few and far between. Teams that win consistently now have one thing in common...

7) A franchise QB. The most successful teams now are the ones with great QB play. Until the Niners realize that, find a top notch QB, and build the team around him, they will, IMHO, continue to struggle.

To sum up....the Niners don't appear to have any of the above in place at the moment. It will take time to do that. It would also appear that the current ownership simply may not be able to put the right pieces in place.

Jed seems overwhelmed as a young "owner" in this league, partly because he doesn't have complete autonomy to run the team. In other words, he still has to go to Mommy and Daddy York to ask for money. That is a structure that is absolutely doomed to failure.

I wish I could be could be more optimistic. I grew up watching this team develop into one of the best sports franchises in history. It is painful to watch it disintegrate into this mess...

Sorry for the long post guys.....props to whoever reads it in its entirety....[/b]

Uh....Nolan didn't fire McCarthy. He left to be the Packers HC.

[ Edited by baltien on Nov 27, 2010 at 07:26:02 ]

Originally posted by BoiseNiner:

Originally posted by SybErkRimInAL:
with this ownership, it's up in the air. Would not surprise me one bit if after firing singletary, they promote Manusky and the cycle starts all over again. Not one bit.

I have a really hard time seeing them promoting Manusky after firing Singletary. I guess I feel that way because if they were even considering him, they probably would have already fired Singletary and promoted Manusky to interim HC to see what he can do with this team.

You're right though. With this ownership, you never know. You'd hope they'd learn from their past mistakes. That's not to say Manusky couldn't be a good HC someday but I feel this team needs to go in a different direction and try something new. Not just repeat the cycle of past failures.

I know people are down on the Yorks, but I don't think they get enough credit.

Sure the results haven't been great, but I think they they've more than displayed a willingness to try. Erickson was a bad hire, and everyone knew it. But given the situation at the time (Terry Donahue, few good players, and no cap space), NO competent coach in his right mind would've taken the the job. After he was fired, and we got healthy cap-wise, John York went on a pretty lengthy search for a new coach.

When he settled on Nolan, almost EVERYONE (the media, the Webzone etc) was on board with the decision. Ditto that for the McCloughlan hire.

And not only that, he started to spend and spend freely on free agents. So while I think the fanbase is rightly critical of the Yorks for not being great football minds, you gotta admit that they at least do try.

[ Edited by baltien on Nov 27, 2010 at 07:47:55 ]

Originally posted by valrod33:
1 offseason away

Originally posted by valrod33:
1 offseason away

Absolutely agree. Our new coach needs to make some f**king moves. Aggressively and quickly in FA.


And get the right f**king players in the draft. At least in the first few rounds -- our last real impact rookie has been P Willy.

Originally posted by Ninerwinner:

Originally posted by valrod33:
1 offseason away

Possibly. I still think we're 2 OL, maybe OT, speed WR, 2 cover CBs, NT, and OLB/Rush DE away from making a run IMO...If we can get this covered with a good HC, someone that can actually gameplan and make adjustments would get us in the right spot for sure.

I think we need 1 really good corner. an OLB...Lamaar Woodley would be nice but wont be going anywhere......a receiver that is big physical and fast..ala Dez Bryant...and of course a solid QB....

Originally posted by dugo:

Originally posted by nw9erfan:

Originally posted by BigBug415:
The sad part of this whole thing is we STILL have many of the same needs/weaknesses that we've had the last couple of seasons:

1. No GM
2. No Coach
3. No QB
4. Horrible O-Line
5. No Speed on Offense (Ted Ginn is a joke)
6. No #1 Reciever
7. No Pass Rush
8. No Secondary
9. No Speed on Defense
10. Bend but don't break
11. Only 3-4 team in the league that isn't aggressive
12. Corners still give a 8 yard cushion
13. I want winners
14. Gotta watch the film

You raise good points here but let's face it Zoners, no team in the NFL these days is strong in all facets of the game. Every team, even the current Patriots, has issues and areas that they would like to improve upon. A team doesn't need to be perfect to be good. However, it does need to have......

1) A head coach that has vision, charisma, intelligence, and is organized enough to get a team ready to play week after week.

2) Solid, experienced, football minds in the front office. I like Baalke as one of the front office guys but the Niners need another more experienced football guy too. Let us not forget that even Bill Walsh also had John McVay.

3) Good OL and DL play. How many times must we stress this? NFL games are indeed won in the trenches and the Niners are losing because they are losing these battles week after week. The Tampa Bay game was a glaring example of this.

4) A creative offensive coordinator. This has been a real problem area for the Niners for many years. Mike Martz was creative but left his QBs too vulnerable to being hit. Mike McCarthy has shown himself to be a good football mind but Nolan fired him after just one year. To me, the vanilla offenses that this team has rolled out over the past few years is particularly shameful.

5) Assistant coaches that can make in-game adjustments and help put together a decent game plan which actually exploits weaknesses that the opposing team has. The Niners haven't had a coaching staff like this since Steve Mariucci's.

6) A real identity... The reason that the Niners were so successful under Walsh is that he gave the team a true identity that was maintained and even enhanced year after year. This team hasn't had a true identity for years. To his credit, Sing did try to mold the team into a "physical with an F" type of team but teams that rely on the run and defense to win games now are few and far between. Teams that win consistently now have one thing in common...

7) A franchise QB. The most successful teams now are the ones with great QB play. Until the Niners realize that, find a top notch QB, and build the team around him, they will, IMHO, continue to struggle.

To sum up....the Niners don't appear to have any of the above in place at the moment. It will take time to do that. It would also appear that the current ownership simply may not be able to put the right pieces in place.

Jed seems overwhelmed as a young "owner" in this league, partly because he doesn't have complete autonomy to run the team. In other words, he still has to go to Mommy and Daddy York to ask for money. That is a structure that is absolutely doomed to failure.

I wish I could be could be more optimistic. I grew up watching this team develop into one of the best sports franchises in history. It is painful to watch it disintegrate into this mess...

Sorry for the long post guys.....props to whoever reads it in its entirety....[/b]

Great Post and I totally agree!! I was a teenager when the niners won their first superbowl and watched as the niners grew into a dynasty.Total team effort from top top bottom.
I'm hoping for them to at least become competive in 2 years..So they can start to grow into a playoff team. We're so far from that..

Agree. You both had great posts!

I don't see where we lack that much. I think the biggest problem on our team is the secondary and the next biggest problem is the fact that we don't have a dominant pass rusher. We can only manufacture a pass rush and that is never good. That only exposes our secondary even more.

Offensively we aren't that bad. I would say our RG spot is a huge problem and we need a vet to fill in there to protect Davis. QB would be fixed with the proper coaching however, I think Alex Smith's tenure is done here in SF. Nate Davis would be a good alternative with an offensive coach to work with him.

So how far away are we? Not very far. We're simply out coached every single game. We're what bill walsh would call schematically stupid.

Actually no. We've been a QB away from the division title for the last 3 seasons.

Originally posted by valrod33:
1 offseason away

no way.

Can't really say. Depends What happens in the offseason.

New Coach?
New QB?

Our dominant run defense is on the decline for sure and it could be worse next year. So many positiions needed on defense as a whole other than safety-i feel Clements may take over if money is not an issue at keeping him.

You need DL depth and you don't resign your nickel defenders. So we may lose some depth there. Is Evans in his final year?

Goldson not being resigned was a great move by the team and I was his BIGGEST FAN coming into this year. The team hopefully seeks dominance at that position, whether clements is the man I don't know, but we need a top-flight Free Safety to get the ball, simple as that.

I hate our development of players on this team. We could go on forever about the R. Smiths, the Chilos, where are our coaches? We need a change across the board, save Tomsula, Baalk, shottenheimer(sp).

We can't get anymore OL. We have to develop who we have so we can adress the receiver position... but only after Cb being our first priority.

2015 for a new stadium, we better get good real quick so the people dont throw that pipe dream away

I dont see how anyone could really answer that question considering this teams coaching staff.

Our scheme is horrible, our play calling is horrible; our guys make horrible decisions on the field (see Nate.C) and we are highly penalized. We are horrible. There are too many guys playing below potential. The Niner coaching staff are career killers.

[ Edited by Oakland-Niner on Nov 27, 2010 at 16:50:21 ]

I honestly think if we had a better head coach we would be (5-5) and probably make the playoffs.
Singletary is holding this team from being a playoff team this year because of our very weak schedule and very very weak Division.

Originally posted by 23zack80:
The problem with the 49ers is not a lack of talent, it's a lack of coaching. Singletary's philosophy is killing the 49ers. Once the 49ers get a quality head coach, they will start winning.

this! we need a qb badly also

Buccaneers are like well coached Niners right now. Ravens might be better team in that direction and probably not there to win the ring. Thats how far away we are.