After yesterday's Raiders game in the McAfee Coliseum parking lot, a man was shot in the leg and groin (ye-ouch!) after a non-football related argument," according Alameda County Sheriff Dept. Sgt. J.D. Nelson. Read more about stupid footballian fan behavior here. (Okay, we only brought this up because we rarely have the chance to talk about football, or more to our point, the stellar show that is 49ers Press Pass With Mike Nolan. It......

Here's todays sports news...

So bloggers might not have been able to turn Snakes on a Plane into the hit they thought it would be but that doesn't mean they don't have any power. Due to fan protests fueled by the blogs, the NFL will let Mike Nolan wear suits on the sidelines for all eight home games next year. ...

--...and as promised, here's the back of the Ed Jew calendar, from reader Jake. Thanks, Jake! Irony alert! Can you guys see the "please contact me if you have problems or if issues concern you" tagline? --Fog City has heard rumors that Peskin might make Daly give up his position as chair of the Budget and Finance Committee. Meanwhile, the Sentinel reports that Daly misread the press release that Newsom's people sent out, and......

-The Warriors beat the New Orleans/OK City Hornets and on KNBR this morning we heard the word "playoffs" being mentioned in reference to the Warriors this season. We'll let Basektball Chris handle that one, but how many seasons now have the Warriors gone on a run in December/January and had people thinking this might be the year? Let's just say the season ain't official 'til Baron Davis goes down. And Tim Kawakami agrees. Meanwhile, are the Warriors better without J-Rich? ...

-Warriors lose to the Suns giving the Suns their 13th straight win. The Warriors missed their first thirteen shots to fall behind early and never recovered. It's the Warriors sixth consecutive road loss....

Saints 34 49ers 10- For 49ers fans, this was a tough loss. And not just because the 49ers came up lacking against their first really good team in awhile. It's tough because it also turned out to be the official Reggie Bush coming out party and for the rest of the week, Niners fans will have to watch in horror as clip after clip after clip of their defense giving it up to Reggie will be played. One should wonder why it is that every other team was capable of bottling the dude up but the Niners couldn't. ...

-The Warriors111 Spurs 102: This is the second big-name team the Warriors have beaten up at home in a week (they beat the Jazz earlier) and they got some R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Take Care TCB, from Spurs coach Greg Popovich. Bruce Jenkins says it's all about Nellie....

Rams 20 49ers 17- At the end of the first half in the game against the Eagles a couple of months ago, Mike Nolan was faced with a decision on whether to go for it on fourth down and inches or kick a field goal. He went for the field goal and was criticized by some of the Faithful for doing so, mainly because they were convinced the Niners were on the verge of rallying and going for it might have swung Big Mo there way. In yesterday's game, Nolan was faced with a similiar decision, this time in the fourth quarter and ahead 14-13, and once again went for the field goal. This time, it might have cost them the game as they lost on a last minute TD. Bring on the controversy. It must be said too that a team that at one point was looking almost as bad as last year's travesty is now in a situation where there's huge debate over a coaching decision and whether or not it cost them a game. Why? Because when you get blown out a lot, it doesn't matter. These things matter now. ...

49ers 20 Seahawks 14-- Clang, clang, clang goes the 49ers bandwagon as this is the biggest win in franchise history in God who knows how long. Probably back when Mariucci was the coach and the playoffs were a semi-regular thing. They beat, we mean beat, not only the top team in the division but also last year's Superbowl losers. The Niners raced to a twenty point lead in the first half then basically held onto......

Before we get to the depressing stuff, let's relate some good news, or at least the cool news. And that is the NFL has finally acquiesced and will let Mike Nolan wear a suit for Sunday's game. Earlier, Nolan talked about wearing a suit to honor his father, former 49ers coach Dick Nolan, and because it's classy. The NFL balked because they couldn't license it and make money off of it so Nolan wore the usual NFL garb. Now the NFL is letting him suit up, provided that Reebok designed it and have the Reebok logo predominately displayed and will soon-to-be available at finer men's stores everywhere. ...

Raiders 20, Steelers 13- Okay, we're going to say this and we know we're being your typical wishy washy sports reporter, but we think the Raiders a better team than the 49ers. Not just because they beat the Superbowl Champs (it's the in-thing to do these days) but because even when they do lose, they don't get blown out like a certain team across the Bay. We think too that it's mainly because the Raiders can play some D while the 49ers can't. Case in point, the particular game in question in which the D scored two TDs on interception returns and sacked Big Ben five times. That's positively Bear-like and it's even more impressive when you consider the offense still stinks like day old socks. ...

Raiders 22, Cardinals 9-- Stupid Raiders can't even win for winning these days. Here they were with an opportunity to do something historic, something almost impossible, something for which they'd be remembered for years and they had to go blow it by winning. Now they are what they are and only what they are-- a crappy football team. Oh, they could’ a been a contender, but no. ...

We're starting to see a pattern emerge with both teams. The Raiders start well but can't finish and the Niners start slowly but finish strong. Which is what happened yesterday as the Raiders were actually up 13-7 at halftime, only to give up 27 straight points to their Bay Area counterparts. The key was a Niners D that grabbed four interceptions and returned a fumble for a TD. They did such a good job that Raiders QB Andrew Walter was replaced by Marques Tuiasosopo in the fourth quarter. The other hero for the Niners day was Frank Gore who rushed for 134 yards and Marvelous Norv Turner who was given the game ball for beating up on his old team. ...

Our favorite part of the beginning of any sports season is scanning through magazine after magazine for previews of our favorite teams. What will the experts say? Is our team as good as we think it is? As bad? Should we have hope or despair? And who kidnapped Peter King and replaced him with some skinny dude? So this year, as we approach NFL '06, we read through the experts to see what they have to say about our two local teams. This year, they all pretty much said the same thing about both of our local teams. In fact, we could sum it up in two words: last place....

Being part of the Award Winning SFist news desk, we suppose we should say something about the NFL draft tomorrow. So we started up with the researching and decided we were so sick about hearing about the thing that we just couldn't take it anymore. Somewhere along the umpteenth story along the lines of "Reggie Bush Sneezes at Combine-- Could Cost Him Five Spots on the NFL Draft!" or "Does Leinart Rooming With Nick Lachey Show He Is a Good Decision Maker?" we decided to beg off. We mean, both ESPN and CNNSI had lead stories recently about a player dropping positions on their Mock Draft. And we're talking big, headline grabbing, front stories about, say, Vince Young going from #3 to #10. ON A MOCK DRAFT. It's like us writing this big, huge, posting saying that we're leaning towards going to a party over the weekend with Natalie Portman instead of Salma Hayek. Yes, there's probably (probably) more of a chance that Young really could be drafted late in the draft than us having a date with either actress, but, and not to get too Buddhist here, both are based on the exact same level of real-ness. Which is none. ...

A couple of days ago, the Niners announced that they finally had their front office football guy and hired him. The new honcho: Lal Heneghan. Heneghan, 42, worked for seven years with the NFL and was vice president of football operations for the Cleveland Browns 2.0 from 1999-2004. Heneghan is supposedly a whiz at contract negotiations and the whacky world of the NFL salary cap, a job that has become one of the most important in the NFL. He will work directly under head coach Mike Nolan and VP of Player Personnel Scot McCloughan....

We have no idea if Mike Nolan will be a good coach or even if he can win with the 49ers, but he's already gotten on SFist's good side. Last week he petitioned the NFL to be allowed to class up the joint and wear a suit on the sidelines. The NFL, otherwise known as the No Fun League, refused to let him. Nolan wanted to wear a suit to honor his father who was coach of the Niners in the late 60's and early 70's and because he wanted a look that said professional and responsible. We would also like to think that Nolan did it for obvious reason- it's old school. Way old school. Talk about your retro jersey. Would Vince Lombardi be Vince Lombardi if he wore a frumpy sweatshirt or dressed like a frat boy just hitting the links. Would Don Shula have become Don Shula? Would Tom Landry be Tom Landry without the hat? We think not. The NFL, however, said no because they just can't allow one person to be on the field who can't be used as a billboard to sell official NFL merchandise. Of course, we might feel differently about this if it wasn't for the fact that every NFL franchise is apparently trying to out-ugly each other in coming out with their new duds. And yes, SFist's beloved sport, baseball, makes their middle-aged paunchy coaches wear uniforms, but baseball is the only sport in which the manager actually enters the action to bring in a new pitcher. Or, in Felipe Alou's case, several pitchers. Hell, Felipe still looks like better in a uniform than SFist could ever hope too. ...

John York said he was going to make a firm, quick decision about hiring a coach and we can't say that he hasn't been a man of his word- today the Niners have a new coach, Mike Nolan. Nolan, 45, has been the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens, one of the best defensive teams in football, for the past several years and has had stints as the defensive coordinator for the Jets, Giants, and......