San Francisco is in good hands with Singletary

By Jeff Dickinson  |   Sunday, December 28, 2008  |  Comments( 1 )

San Francisco 49ers
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The San Francisco 49ers beat the Washington Redskins 27-24 on Sunday to wrap up the 2008 regular season, but that wasn’t really the news in the Bay Area.

The announcement by the 49ers shortly after the game was that the “interim” tag would be removed from coach Mike Singletary’s title for 2009. Singletary was given a vote of confidence after taking over a woeful San Francisco team that was 2-5 and leading it to a 5-4 record.

On the final day of football for the '08 Niners, stability was set in motion with the Singletary announcement. At least seven NFL teams will be searching for a new coach this offseason, which is one of the highest turnover rates of all time.

If the 49ers had shown Singletary the door, they would have been competing with all of those teams for the top coaching prize of Bill Cowher. After Cowher, the list of experienced coaching candidates doesn’t exactly leave cause for celebration.

Names like Marty Schottenheimer, Brian Billick and Jim Fassel have been tossed about as potential coaching candidates. Coordinator candidates like Steve Spagnuolo (New York Giants), Jim Schwartz (Tennessee Titans) and Josh McDaniels (New England Patriots) have been picking up steam in recent weeks.

The experienced retread coaches are out of work for a reason – they failed to win in recent years. The exciting coordinators have established themselves on an assistant level, but haven’t run one play as the top coach on a team’s totem pole.

Why would the 49ers be better off with a coach-turned-analyst or an unproven coordinator than with Singletary? They wouldn’t. For every Mike Smith in Atlanta and John Harbaugh in Baltimore, there are a bunch more Scott Linehans and Rod Marinellis who failed miserably at the top level.

With Singletary at the helm, the 49ers will be disciplined. They will also play hard, something that couldn’t always be said under former coach Mike Nolan. Singletary has some offseason work to do, of course, as can be expected with any team that fails to make the playoffs.

One question mark revolves around offensive coordinator Mike Martz. Singletary and Martz haven’t seen eye-to-eye on a number of occasions, and there are rumors that Martz will be replaced. Singletary already proved to everyone with the Vernon Davis incident earlier this season that it’s his way or the highway.

It would make sense for Singletary to make a change with Martz. Nolan chose Martz, and a new coordinator will allow Singletary to further put his stamp on this team. There are also questions about the offensive line and the receiving corps, but at least Singletary has some of the building blocks in place for a franchise on the rise.

If San Francisco finishes 7-9 next season with a full slate of games under Singletary’s belt, then it will be safe to say that the vote of confidence he received on Sunday will be much less confident. But anyone who saw the fire that Singletary had as a player and has carried over to the sidelines probably won’t bet against him.


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About Jeff Dickinson

I have been writing and editing professionally for 18 years. I spent the first three years of my career as a sportswriter for a daily newspaper in Alabama and got to cover sports and get paid for it! It was great until I got married and then it wasn't too much fun being away from my wife every ...
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