With the perpetual rebuilding process that is the San Francisco 49er franchise, every so often an old part of old successes will cycle back through SF. This Sunday, Gilroy’s second-most-favorite export returns to the Bay Area at the reigns of Chucky Gruden’s particular strain of West Coast Offense. You never should have been run out of town, Jeff....

Former A's pitcher Joe Kennedy, 28, died at his home in Florida this morning. At this time the cause of death is officially unknown, but it was "sudden" and a brain aneurysm is rumored to be at fault, according to the Chronicle. Making his major league debut in 2001 with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Kennedy went on to play for other teams such as the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Toronto Blue Jays, and of......

-- Bill Walsh dies. [Chron, Examiner, KGO] -- Tom Snyder dies. [Chron] -- Matt Gonzalez's chance at becoming SF Mayor dies. [Chron, KGO] -- Dog pimps FlexPetz to open SF brothel. (In related news, pets are neither toys nor furniture.) [Tampa Bay's 10] -- Ed Jew’s trial continues. [Chron] -- Caltrans closes parts of the 101 from midnight to 5 a.m. starting tonight until 8/3. [KRON4] -- East Bay's garbage picked up. [KPIX]......

It's time for American Football Spectacular's capsule reviews of the 2007 NFL Draft. Adventure, excitement,measureables!...

At times, coaches get blamed for losing a game. Herm Edwards, Doc Rivers, and Marty Schottenheimer, we're looking at you......

As goes the adage, defense wins championships. And in the National Football League's 2007 championship game, two masters of the "Cover 2" defensive zone coverage scheme meet: the Colts' Head Coach Tony Dungy, and Da Bearsss' Head Coach Lovie Smith....

When Editor Jon sent a message with the scoop that the Raiders had picked up Kiffin to be the new Head Coach for the Silver And Black, we were excited....

And now, onto the big rumor, that Libby wasn't actually on the plane and that she's part of the Hanso foundation. Oops, wait, not that one (sorry, we have "Lost" on the brain and did "American Idol" really do double the ratings and is it one of those decline of Western Civilization type things or should we just roll with it?)No, we're talking about the story in this week's Sports Illustrated saying that former 49er owner Eddie DeBartolo and former 49er head honcho Carmen Policy are thinking about buying the Raiders and moving them to LA. ...

Every Head Coach has inclinations about how they like to run their team. For example, our Niners' savior-genius Bill Walsh ran a short passing game informed by strong running. Bill Cowher, Head Coach of the Steelers, prefers heavy ball-control pounding with a dash of trick plays, and a powerful 3-4 defense. The two Head Coaches in The Battle Of The Repurposed are both out of their comfort zone, and that is fascinating....

Better start walking down Chestnut with your arms defensively crossed, folks -- the SFPD is hot in pursuit of a serial groper in a light-colored SUV. Handsie stopped four women on the street between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. to ask for directions and then started up with the touching. All four women managed to get free. Handsie is a white male, about 160 pounds, and was wearing a white shirt, a blue shirt, a plaid shirt, and a tan jacket. That's a lotta layering there, pal. And speaking of handsies, two Niners season tickets holders, along with the ACLU, have sued the NFL. No, not for the Niners sucking, but because they're tired of being patted down before going into the stadium. The NFL says they put a league-wide requirement for patdowns before games post-9/11. The ACLU previously sued in Tampa Bay and got an injunction on patdowns before Buccaneer games for the rest of this season. ... and let's get into the holiday spirit! A good samaritan in Concord who hastily left his car running on the side of the road as he dashed to help a family trapped in a flipped-over SUV was busy trying to free three children from their seat belts as he saw someone else dash into his truck and drive it away. Everyone's fine, but the samaritan's out a 1989 white Chevy truck with wood paneling on the side, license plate number 3U55070. ...

Man, that Colts/Bengals game on Sunday was good. Sixty-two points at halftime, eighty-two total points at the end. All that and Charles Johnson celebrating a TD by proposing to a Bengal cheerleader. Too bad we never got to see the game. Also not shown was the big, first place battle between Michael Vick's Falcons and the Tampa Bay Bucs. As well as the old skool defensive battle between Da Bears and the Panthers that had everyone talking '85 Bears. We also didn't get a chance to see the big Giants/Eagles game and for anyone who has ever lived in the East Coast knows, a big, late-fall throw down between two NFC East rivals is the kind of game that one can just hear John Facienda calling. What we did see, however, was a Raiders/'Skins yawner, a battle between a team already out of it and a team rapidly falling out of it. Unless you're a Raiders fan, that game held no interest to anyone unless they had someone on their fantasy team (like us). What did the other channel, that being FOX, show instead? An interview with Don "Chuckles" Rumsfield. Football, football everywhere, but not a good game to see. Why, oh why can't we see good football games?...

For perennial doormats like the Chicago Blackhawks, snakebit franchises like the Arizona Cardinals, and irrelevant standings stuffers like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, hope springs eternal in the preseason. So it is, yet again, with this year's East Bay ballers. For about the fifth year in a row, the Warriors' marketing department is trying to hype us on the upcoming season as one of promise and playoffs. To quote Jim Mora, "Playoffs? Don't talk about playoffs. Are you kidding me? Playoffs?"...

When the A's left the Bay Area for nine games against Tampa Bay and Cleveland, we at A's Brand Baseball wrote: Such a break from major league competition could be just what the doctor ordered . . . We were right, too: those games against the A's really helped out the Devil Rays and Indians. Until Monday night's 11-inning comeback win over Tampa Bay, the A's had lost 9 games in a row; it......

Hey Bay Area baseball fans, take a deep breath of relief as your offensively challenged, injury riddled, questionably GM'ed baseball team faces off against another offensively challenged, injury riddled, questionably GM'ed Bay Area baseball team. Interleague baseball, an idea that's won over even us die-hard traditionalists (although we do agree that the whole rivalry thing is overdone) starts this weekend as the A's cross over the Bay Bridge to take on the Giants. These games never have quite the inner-city turf war feel that one sees in New York or Chicago, but they've always been good, well-played games that do seem to let the other team's fans crow a bit louder than they usually do. And if that's not the point in these games, we don't know what is. ...

Previously, on SFist: Giants fans got to attend a home opener. On Monday night in Oakland, it was Kirk Saarloos (1-1, 5.59 and still looking like a solid fifth starter) giving up six runs against the Toronto Blue Jays. Going into the game, the A's sat at three wins and three losses after series against Baltimore and Tampa Bay, and we'll take that. For now. The promising new and/or young players have so far......

In the most anticipated game of the season for Bay Area football fans, the Cal Bears manhandled the Stanford Cardinal, 41-6. J.J. Arrington put together yet another 100-yard game, but red-shirt freshman Marshawn Lynch stole the show, running for 122 yards -- including an electrifying 55-yard touchdown run -- and completing a 20-yard pass to for a score. Cal plays their makeup game on December 4th in Mississippi, but are otherwise at the mercy of......

Warren Sapp's thoughts on living in San Fran....

Football wrap-up....