Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start: when Alex Smith got injured, there was some back-and-forth about whether or not he was healthy. While this was going on, Nolan made the occasional subtle and not-so-subtle dig at Smith for not being sufficiently tough. Cue speculation and rumormongering approaching Brangelina levels. The Merc apparently had heard some other Niners joining in on the Smith dog pile and asked Alex about it. Alex went a wee bit on the ballistic side and accused Nolan of trying to turn the team against him, making him play when he wasn't healthy, and for generally being a big poopy-head. This all hit the press sometime yesterday and, well, hello hullabaloo. Naturally, the two parties met and issued statements talking about how their relationship is all :) and not :(

So now you have the franchise QB fighting with the Face of the Franchise and, no, that's never a good thing.

The question of what to do now has landed on the not-very capable laps of the York's who have to figure out a way though this mess. They now basically have three choices: negotiate some sort of detente between the two, get rid of Nolan, or get rid of Smith. Ideally, the negotiation thing would be easiest way out of it but maybe not the best solution. So, then, who should go?

Arguments in favor of keeping Nolan: He looks really good in a suit.
Arguments for keeping Smith: the Niners gave him a lot of money.

The problem in trying to figure out whom to get rid of is that it's kind of hard to tell, especially when it comes to Smith. It's kind of the chicken vs. egg question in that it's hard to know whether the team isn't very good because the QB isn't very good or whether the QB isn't very good because the team isn't very good. Either way, that all falls on the coach's shoulders, as he's the one responsible for said team and said QB. Not to mention the one who drafted said QB

All of this is going on with questions about what to do with Nolan in the background. As the season got worse and worse, the question about whether to let Nolan loose went from a whisper to a shout. The evidence is kind of damning, or at least this is-- in three years as coach, Nolan’s record is 14-31. Pretty, pretty, not good. And somehow, this team might be even worse than the previous teams, if only because of the expectations surrounding them were kind of high. Then there’s the fact he’s not getting along with the press who thinks he's a bad mixture of arrogant and clueless. That's never a good combination.

It must be said too that it's really hard to tell just how good Smith is because it’s not like he’s been given a whole lot to work with. For the most part, the O-Line has been awful, he’s had no playmakers on the team, and the coaching has been rather inept. Truth is, with bad coaching, Joe Montana could have been his generation’s Rex Grossman. On the other hand, Smith could just be kind of bad.

So what does this leave us? One big, huge, awful, ugly mess.