On Sunday, the mustache-wearing 49ers will close out their regular season against the Washington Redskins, with the hope of finishing the season on a hot-streak. If they should pull out the win at home, the 49ers will close the season on a 5-4 run under interim head coach Mike Singletary, after starting the season 2-5 under Mike Nolan. If only Nolan would have inspired his team by dropping his pants once or twice, the season may have gone a different direction. Or perhaps not.
Regardless, there seems to be plenty of good news for Singletary, as Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee points out that the team may be ready to name him its head coach, removing that pesky interim tag, as soon as Sunday's game with Washington ends. The thinking is, according to Barrows, that if a number of teams fire their current head coaches, Singletary could be a wanted man, and the 49ers don't want to let that happen.
Barrows also reports that Singletary met with the top brass in the San Francisco organization this week, and laid out his blueprint for returning the 49ers to relevance in the NFL. A blueprint that does not include offensive coordinator Mike Martz.
Apparently, Singletary doesn't like Martz and his pass-first, J.T. O'Sullivan is the best quarterback ever style of play, and instead prefers to play a ball control, three-yards and a cloud of dust, smash-mouth offense.
During the Martz years, the 49ers offense has ranked 32nd and 24th in terms of total yards, while finishing 32nd and 23rd in terms of points. Granted, the 23rd and 24th rankings have come this year, during the second-year of the Martz experiment, so I suppose improvement is a good thing. Though, in this case, not quite good enough.
The most costly gaffe of the year, however, may have been his desire to turn O'Sullivan into his San Francisco version of Kurt Warner, even though he had a quarterback that had performed better on the field the previous season -- as well as this season -- in Shaun Hill.
Sports
Of course, Martz never coached Hill in a previous city, so, that's as good a reason as any to keep him on the bench. Wait, what's that? It isn't? Who knew?
Mike Singletary Has a Plan for the 49ers, and It Doesn't Involve Mike Martz originally appeared on NFL FanHouse on Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:10:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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