My first memory of a professional football game, any professional football game, was the Joe Montana to Dwight Clark touchdown, now simply labeled "The Catch", in the 1982 NFC Championship Game. I was five. I remember I was being babysat and that when my parents game to pick me up, it was quite the big "to do". I was too young to know that the 49ers had suffered years of futility over the last decade and were consistently bettered by the hated Dallas Cowboys. Two weeks later, the family gathered to watch the 49ers defeat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XVI at my grandparent's house (both of whom had been season ticket holders since the Kezar days). I became a fan instantly. Not counting the strike shortened 1982 campaign, my beloved 49ers would constantly be play-off contenders and to paraphrase from The Squid and the Whale, "the fillet of the NFL" over the next 18 years, including four more Super Bowl championships.
It's ironic that the receiver of this heralded pass would also help undo of one of the greatest runs in NFL history. In 1997 after Eddie DeBartolo was indicted for tax fraud, Carmen Policy and Dwight Clark took over in the front office and began making dubious decision after dubious decision under the new president, John York aka Eddie D's brother in law. While the team was able to stay in playoff contention, reality hit home when quarterback Steve Young was knocked out for the season, and his career, one Monday night in Arizona. The 49ers would end that 1999 season 2-11. The next season would be the final season with the 49ers for the last of the greats of the era, receiver Jerry Rice. Surprisingly by 2001, the 49ers would be back in the playoffs. An impressive rebuilding job under Steve Mariucci led by the emergence of journeyman quarterback Jeff Garcia and wide receiver Terrell Owens. The next year, the 49ers would win their division and make a tremendous comeback in the first round of the playoffs to overtake the New York Giants before being crushed by eventual Super Bowl Champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Mariucci would find himself fired and John York seemed to have no clue about who should replace him until finally his dart landed on a picture of Dennis Erikson, who had been out of the NFL for about four years at the time of his hiring. Erickson, with the help of new general manager Terry Donahue, led Mariucci's playoff making team, with pretty much the entire line-up intact, to a 7-9 season. But they saved the best for 2004, parting ways with pretty much the entire offense, including Garcia, Owens, Tai Streets, Garrison Hearst, and fielding a 2-14 team while wasting a first round draft pick on Rashuan Woods who caught about one catch in two seasons and is currently out of football.
Thankfully the Erickson/Donahue era ended after the season. Former Baltimore Raven defensive coordinator (and son of an ex-49er coach), Mike Nolan was put in charge at the start of the 2005 season. York had so much confidence in the guy that he was also put in charge of General Manager duties, despite the fact the guy had never been a head coach at any level. The Niners drafted Utah quarterback Alex Smith with the number one pick in the draft. Smith, however, sat for the start of the season as Tim Rattay lead the 49ers to a surprising win in their first game of the season over the Rams. That would be the last win Rattay ever would get as a starter for the 49ers, as he would continue to look like the guy who was the quarterback during the 2-14 season. He would be demoted in favor of Smith and eventually traded to Tampa Bay. Smith looked miserable his first two games and an injury forced him to sit for a few weeks as the 49ers starting quarterback became a revolving door, Ken Dorsey actually led the team to a victory over eventual NFC South winners Tampa Bay before sitting out a few games himself with an injury leading to the nadir of the modern 49ers quarterbacking experience, Cody Pickett starting and garnering a historical one completion performance against the Chicago Bears. Alex Smith would eventually return, and would continue to struggle...until the last two games of the year, when the 49ers managed a win streak, beating the Rams again and finally throwing a touchdown (after compiling 11 interceptions and no TDs in his other six starts) in the season ending win over the Houston Texans in what was ironically billed "The Reggie Bush Bowl", ironic of course because the winner would be considered the loser because they wouldn't have the chance to draft USC Heismen Trophy winner Bush, the irony compounded when the Texans passed him up and took Mario Williams.
So that was then...what about now. Is the team beginning to show progress? Is there hopes for the faithful? Or are we just falling prey to our idealistic hopes? Let me break it down and we'll see if at the halfway point in the season wether the current 49ers team is better or worse than last season's.
Record
Well, this is an easy one, at this point last year the 49ers were 2-6, coming off their upset over the Vikings, they are 3-5. So BETTER.
Quarterback
The 49ers started four quarterbacks last year, three of whom are no longer on the team. Alex Smith is now the starter and after a pretty horrific rookie season that saw him throw 11 interceptions to 1 touchdown, his progress was a major factor in the team's hopes for improvement in the near future. Well, he definitely looks more sure of himself, if not yet worthy of his number one draft status. Statistically his numbers are light years ahead of last season, his QB rating is up by thirty-nine points. He has 9 touchdowns to 7 interceptions. He has fumbled the ball less, and shown a lot more presence in the pocket. However, before we get too excited here, he has played pretty poorly overall in the last two games (one of which was the Vikings win), losing two fumbles and throwing three interceptions. While he hasn't shown the strong improvements in his second year that both Manning brothers and Ben Roethlisberger did, he is showing improvement and that is what is the most important matter. BETTER
Running Game
Giving Frank Gore the position of unquestionable leading running back was a smart one. Kevan Barlow never showed any consistency or dependability when he took over the lead back spot after Hearst was cut. Gore has proven he's capable of being a 25 attempts sort of guy and has been one of the leading rushers in the conference all year. The major "but" being the fumbling. He lost four fumbles in the first four games, three of which were in the red zone and prevented the team from scoring. Back-ups Marcus Robinson and Maurice Hicks have shown spurts of promise, but also have deficiencies, Robinson twice in the Raiders game was unable to push forward for a yard on Fourth and One plays and Hicks has had some fumbling issues. Fullback Chirs Hetherington has proved little presence taking over for free agent loss Fred Beasly. He has no carries and two receptions for zero yards. BETTER.
Tight End
Coming into the season, you would have expected vast improvements here, but alas, number one draft pick Vernon Davis has been injured since Week Three and Eric Johnson has looked slightly less resilient coming off the second entire season spent on the Injured List. Still compare these stats, in the first half of this season, tight ends have combined for 28 catches, 247 yards and 2 touchdowns, whereas all of last season, the 49ers studly line-up of Terry Jones, Billy Bajema and Trent Smith racked up 17 catches, 137 yards and 0 touchdowns. BETTER
Wide Receivers
Like their brethren the Tight Ends, the Wide Receiver is better by default, besides Brandon Lloyd's occasional acrobatic circus catches, the position inspired little fanfare last seson. The position yield only 8 touchdowns all last year, and while the position has only netted 5 touchdowns thus far, free agent pickup Antonio Bryant has the look of a solid go-to guy and unfortunately the possible combustible attitude of some go-to guys like Terrell Owens, Randy Moss, et al. Arnaz Battle is a decent third of fourth option, of course the fact that he's actually the 49ers second option shows just how much a priority they need to make this position in the off-season. BETTER
Offensive Line
Its hard to judge this position by comparing stats, but they are giving Alex Smith a bit more time thus allowing him the possibility of avoiding sacks, fumbles and making costly throwing mistakes. Still, they have displayed a knack of being unable to stay healthy and the running backs have sure had a hard time getting the short yardage when needed. Not by much, but they're still BETTER
Defense
To cut to the chase here, I am not going to break this into specific position, let's just say the defense, with the exception of the Vikings game, has been simply dreadful. Losing our best defensive player, Julian Peterson, to free agency might have something to do with it. The offense might be improving, but how can it keep up when the defense is giving up scores of 34 (to Arizona!), 38, 41, 48 and 41 (and that's just the first half of the Bears game)? We've made Kurt Warner look like the guy who lead the Rams to the Super Bowl in 1999 again and made Damon Huard and Rex Grossman look like the next coming of Petyon Manning. Our opponents average 29 points a game. Defensive backs have 5 interceptions this year, four of which came in the Raiders game, so that's 1 interception in the other seven games! Anyway, I could go on, but its too much to bare, they get WORSE WORSE WORSE (one for the defensive line, one for the linebackers, one for the defensive backs)
SPECIAL TEAMS
The special teams squad has not yielded any major yardage on returns, but consequently have not done much themselves in that area. Kicker Joe Nedney has missed a few more field goals then last year, Punter Andy Lee continues his job as the hardest working man in football, while actually improving his punting average by 2 yards. The 49ers have successfully converted 2 onside kicks, and there has been no Jose Cortez sightings, by default that equals BETTER
COACHING
Mike Nolan might not be Hitler like exiting running back Kevan Barlow once claimed, but he definitely has control issues, and unless the team gets a respected General Manager in the off-season, it looks like we will live and/or die solely by his decision making. The team has come off looking a lot flatter this year, there have been five twenty point or more losses this year, compared to two at the midway point last year, we may have one more win so far this year, but our losses have been severe, and this rests on Nolan. For a team coached by an alleged defensive guru, the defense sure blows. However, Norv Turner is a big upgrade at Offensive Coordinator replacing Mike McCarthy who should get some kind of George W. Bush award for turning a really spotty resume into a plum job after taking the 32nd ranked offense last year and getting hired as head coach of the Packers. I'm calling this one a WASH
Ownership
John York is still around, and it looks like in five years I will be talking about the Santa Clara 49ers (who will probably still be in "rebuilding mode"), automatic WORSE
Looking at the scorecard, I have 7 "betters", 4 "worses" and 1 "wash", which, I guess means the team is improving, however slowly. In my season preview, I predicted the 49ers to go 5-11. Looking at their schedule for the last half of the season, they have four winnable games (at Detroit, at St. Louis, Green Bay and Arizona), two games against the Seahawks who will probably have Matt Hasslebeck and Shaun Alexander back (thus the 49ers will lose), a game at New Orleans that might have looked like a winnable game before the season started and the Saints improved, and a season ending match-up against the Denver Broncos which could be a big deal for Denver if they need to clinch a playoff spot or the division title, in that case, count it as a loss, or Denver could have wrapped up their playoff position by that point and decide to treat the game as an exhibition contest and start Jay Cutler, in that case look for the 49ers to win and use it as motivation for next year. Yeah, 5-11 is looking just about right.
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