New Orleans Saints Forums - blackandgold.com - Mike Singletary, 49ers tottering

Right, let's review. In a relatively short period of time, the 49ers have:

1. Watched their GM bolt the organization with virtually no explanation;
2. Gone from an 8-8 mediocrity last season to out-and-out favorite to win the NFC West, without the benefit of actually having played another game;
3. Had a second-year running back walk out of camp and retire on the spot;
4. Seen arguably their top two receivers engage in a shouting match so out of control that they had to be removed from the practice field and taken into the locker room for a cool-down session;
5. Traveled to Seattle and laid the biggest egg of opening weekend, a 31-6 loss to the Seahawks;
6. Blamed the defeat on lousy communication all the way around, up to and including a postgame rant by coach Mike Singletary that was so unfocused he had to redeliver it to the team after its plane landed back in San Francisco.

Good thing this isn't the kind of situation in which anyone is inclined to panic early.

Oh, wait: This is the NFL.
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2010/0916...etarym_200.jpg
No one questions Mike Singletary's passion, but it can sometimes confuse his message.
Panic ensues. Isn't it remarkable what a single four-quarter performance can do to a team's public perception? Heading into their 2010 inaugural, the 49ers were being fitted for the divisional title based upon an assumed improvement and the general cruddiness of the rest of the NFC West.

One game later, the question is whether Singletary can hang on to his team. And it's as valid a question as any other.

With the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints coming to Candlestick Park on Monday night, things could get worse for the 49ers before they get better. But the open rifts on display in Singletary's locker room -- and perhaps even within the coaching and administrative ranks -- suggest deeper issues, bigger cracks. The job just got tougher.

It is actually instructive to see how much latitude Singletary is being given to put it all back together, considering the stakes. The 49ers have been down for so long, going all the way back to the York family's brutal decision to whack Steve Mariucci in January 2003 without having a Plan B in place, that the level of belief in Singletary -- dynamic, forceful, perpetually trying to move forward -- is constantly in danger of being out of proportion with the reality of any one man's abilities.

Singletary took over from Mike Nolan midway through the 2008 season and finished it respectably, going 5-4 down the stretch. The 49ers' 8-8 record last year was, perhaps incredibly, the best the team has compiled since Mariucci was fired. Add the Seattle loss last weekend, and Singletary is .500 in his brief tenure as a head coach.

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