Happy 4th of July!
The Haight Street Underworld
Giants Clobber The Astros, 13-0
SFist Tonight
(By Joe Kukura)
Life becomes worth living again, as NFL teams have opened their training camps league-wide. We contemplated the nascent Oakland Raiders Tuesday, and the consider the similarly-underdog 49ers today. The two teams will play to open their preseason Friday at 7 p.m. at McAfee Coliseum.
Leadership voids -- who's gonna fill 'em? Leadership voids are the only thing these 49ers know for sure they have. Sure, Patrick Willis has a fucking "S" on his chest. Nate Clements and Allen Rossum can ruin quarterbacks' lives while making it look fun and easy. Manny Lawson and Kentwan Balmer just have too cool of names to fail. But as they gild their 2008 manifestation in Santa Clara, these Niners have deeper, more fundamental issues to sort through. To wit:
-Who Owns This Team? Immediately post-Eddie, his supposedly-smarter sister Denise DeBartolo York took ownership. Her straight-out-of-Dunder-Mifflinhusband John York has (astonishingly mis-) handled these duties the last few years. This year, nepotistically-appointed Jed York has played owner in John's frequent absence. Has any of these people ever given off the slightest impression that they enjoy owning an NFL team?
-Who's Coaching This Team? Mike Nolan seems kinds Ed Jew circa September 2007. They allowed him to rotate extensively in the wind after last season, but unenthusiastically kept him on. Mike Martz came on as offensive coordinator, perhaps with some notion that the top job might become vacant mid-season. To what degree is Martz scheming to head coach this team? That's like asking, To what degree are narcotics present in the Tenderloin?
-Who's The Starting Quarterback? If it were up to Brock Keeling, Alex Smith would get the starting job plus also a basket of muffins and a happy ending. But it's not -- and frankly, Smith still hasn't proven he can play a lick in this league. Shaun Hill has... but in very limited action. But now UC-Davis product J.T. O'Sullivan has been named starter of the first preseason game, based on his actually having the foggiest clue of how Martz's Umberto Eco-complexity playbook works. There's an old football maxim that if you claim you have two good quarterbacks, then you in fact have none. But if you claim to have three... do you in fact then have a negative number of quarterbacks? And how are the fans going to agree on whose name to chant when the starter sucks?
Vegas Over/Under for 49er wins this season: 6.5
Vegas Odds for 49ers to Win the Super Bowl: 53-to-1
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Weak ownership is the root cause of the 49ers ongoing mediocrity. Eddie D. and Carmen were brilliant -- too bad Eddie D. got in trouble and had to cede control of the team.
It's the same problem with the Raiders. Al Davis's time has come and gone.
Great article. The last paragraph is very insightful and although I don't know Brock personally, "If it were up to Brock Keeling, Alex Smith would get the starting job plus also a basket of muffins and a happy ending"- hilarious! Im so glad sfist has a sports writer. Go Raiders