It's official: Mike Singletary is not a coach.
No he has not been fired but San Francisco 49ers' fans sneaking suspicion about the Hall of Fame linebacker have been confirmed. That is of course if you believe Hall of Fame coach John Madden.
The formers Oakland Raiders coach was asked on his weekly KCBS radio show about Singletary yelling at struggling quarterback Alex Smith on Sunday Night Football.
Madden was not impressed.
"I don't know if you have to yell at players," he said. "Now, someone's going to say you yelled like heck, but I wasn't yelling at players, I was yelling at officials. That's not what it is."
So what is a coach suppose to do in that situation, coach?
"You have to coach, you have to teach, you have to strategize, you have to encourage. That's what coaching is, not the opposite."
When Madden talks about coaching, he is worth listening to. The coach-turned-broadcaster was the youngest coach ever to win 100 games in the NFL and he won a Super Bowl, which doesn't hurt his credibility.
Madden had some insights on what to do with Smith as well.
"It's probably just the whole talent, of all the things that an NFL quarterback has to be," he said. "If you take the top guys and you watch what they can do, and then you watch Alex Smith, and they don't do the same things. There's a lot of teams that are winning with that, though."
The coach seems to have the voice of the 49ers fan pegged.
