Category Archives: Football

Why Alex Smith Will be Back with the 49ers Next Season

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March 19, 2012

So it’s decided. Peyton Manning’s going to Denver after all. For 49ers’ fans, who were casual observers of the Manning Saga until they were suddenly thrust into the middle of it Friday morning, there’s a feeling of loss today.

On the surface, nothing has changed. The team didn’t have a starting QB under contract before Friday, and they don’t today. Alex Smith was available Friday, and he still has not signed a contract.

Below the surface, however, it seems like everything is different. The 2011 49ers were a team built on chemistry and belief in each other, and it all started with Jim Harbaugh’s announcement that he would be just fine with Alex Smith as his quarterback. We all know how it turned out.

Now, we don’t know what to think. Is Harbaugh’s faith in Alex shaken? Does this mean they can’t work together anymore? What about Smith’s teammates, who took their cues about Alex from their coach? Does the team’s pursuit of Peyton Manning mean that they shouldn’t believe in #11?

No, no, and a resounding no.

Hey, I understand that part of the fun part of being a sports fan is putting yourself in the position of the people we watch and trying to imagine how they feel as events unfold. The problem is, unless you’ve actually been there, you have no idea what’s going on and how anybody feels. So before you make an analogy involving the 49ers’ pursuit of Manning and marital infidelity (an analogy I’ve heard on sports radio several times over the past few days), get a hold of yourself.

You heard it here first. Smith will be the quarterback for the 49ers this year. Not out of loyalty or some other emotional motivation; It’s simply the best fit for him. He’s played in a lot of systems for a lot of coordinators over the years, and for him to get his panties in a bunch and leave the team over their interest in a future Hall-of-Famer would be all kinds of stupid. I know there are still plenty of people who don’t believe Smith can take this team to the Super Bowl, but I never heard any of them say that the reason was that he was stupid.

From the 49ers standpoint, it makes just as much sense. Kaepernick is not ready, and nobody else is available to them who projects to win more games than Smith, now that Manning is on his way to Denver.

The irony is that Smith’s detractors will have to do two things: 1) Be impressed that the 49ers tried to upgrade the position, and 2) welcome Smith back as the best option for the team for next season. It actually removes some of the pressure on him to make up for what many people feel was a sub-par performance in the NFC Championship game last year.

Smith was wise to go to Miami and take the temperature down there. Had Manning signed with the 49ers, the Dolphins were really going to be his only option if he wanted to remain a starter.His visit there does not mean that his feelings were hurt to the point that he wouldn’t come back to the ‘Niners, it just meant that he was doing his due diligence, which, again, is a sign of his intelligence.

The 49ers kicked the tires on Peyton Manning. I think they would have gotten him if they weren’t up against  a desperate man, but John Elway was not going to lose out on his only chance to get out from under Tim Tebow. If you can blame the 49ers for anything, it was not seeing that coming. They could have saved themselves some time and trouble, but it will not cost them Alex Smith.

 

Greg Knapp is no “Re-tread”

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Written February 1st, 2012

It started Monday evening, like everything else does these days, on Twitter. First I saw CSNBayArea’s Paul Gutierrez’ tweet saying that the Raiders had offered the offensive coordinator job to Greg Knapp. Hmm, I thought, I wonder how that’s going down with Raider Nation?

So I searched “Knapp”, and smoke started to slowly seep out of my phone. One tweet after another, “Greg ‘take a’ Knapp,” “Let’s bring JaMarcus back, too,” “What are they doing?” and, of course, “retread.”

On the radio today, I heard John Lund on 95.7 The Game lay out a pretty detailed analysis of Knapp’s career, including his time with the Raiders, and his conclusion, along with every guest he had on the show from Indy, was that it was a pretty good hire. What did his partner, Mychael Urban, think? “He’s a retread, John. I don’t like retreads.”

So I thought I’d try to help calm everybody down. First of all, what’s a retread in coaching? Someone who, despite a lack of success, continues to be hired to coaching positions, usually head coaching positions. Greg Knapp has been an assistant coach in the NFL for over 20 years. The Raiders years were  easily the least distinguished of his career, but you can hardly say that he hasn’t been successful. He has coached in the playoffs in San Francisco, Atlanta and Houston, the first two as a coordinator.  You could hardly blame Knapp for the Raiders’ problems those two years, and the truth is the team got worse offensively after Tom Cable stripped him of the OC title.

He has that “demotion” on his resume, but Knapp has never been “fired,” in the sense that Greg Manusky was let go by Norv Turner after this season. He’s lost jobs, but only when the head coach he worked for got axed. He was on Steve Mariucci’s staff with the 49ers when Steve was surprisingly fired, and he got canned in Atlanta when Jim Mora wore out his welcome there. Mora spent the next two years as an assistant, and as soon as he got another head coaching job, he re-hired Knapp. The Seahawks changed their minds on Mora after just one year, and Knapp was looking for work again. Gary Kubiak hired him to be the QB coach in Houston, working with Matt Schaub, whom he had coached in Atlanta.

So Schaub gets hurt, and then Matt Leinert gets hurt, and the Texans are down to C.J. Yates. You all know how that turned out, but you might have forgotten that Knapp was the guy who got the credit for “coaching him up” and winning a playoff game.

There’s a theme in Knapp’s career. People who have worked with him before want to work with him again. Do you think that Matt Schaub would have wanted Knapp to be the QB coach if he didn’t respect him from their days in Atlanta?  Think Shaub was worried that Knapp was a retread?

Here’s another way to look at it, Raiders fans. Let’s just say Dennis Allen really wanted Greg Knapp, but the people in the Raiders’ offices really didn’t like him. There are still many people in that organization who were there when Knapp was there. They know better than any of us what went wrong in those lost seasons, and if Knapp was to blame, they wouldn’t want him back. Would Allen want the distraction of shoving Knapp down the organization’s throat, with all he has to do the next couple of years? No way.

All right, I’m going to make one more pass at this to help Raider fans give this guy a chance. Do you like Darren McFadden, Raider Fans? Of course you do. Well, McFadden will love Greg Knapp. His SF teams were 2nd, 5th and 6th in rushing in his three years there, and the Falcons led the league in rushing in all three of his seasons running that show.

Did you see how Texas ran the ball the last few years? Okay, I can see how you don’t want to give Knapp credit for that, it wasn’t his offense. But the architect of the blocking schemes that the Texans use to run the ball is a guy named Alex Gibbs. Who’s that? Just the guy who put the Denver Broncos running game together that finally carried John Elway to the Super Bowl Championship in the 90’s. Remember those Broncos teams, how 1,000-yard rushers would appear out of nowhere every year? Gibbs did that. Kubiak brought him to Houston in 2008 to do the same thing in Houston.

What does this have to do with Greg Knapp? Alex Gibbs was also on the Falcons staff with Knapp and Dennis Allen. I think you can expect that the Raiders will hire an OL coach with experience in Gibbs’ system, and Knapp will coordinate an offense that will make Darren McFadden and his fans very happy.

I think this is the fourth straight outstanding move by the Raiders. The hiring of Reggie McKenzie, the decision to cut ties with Hue Jackson, and the hiring of Allen were all big steps forward for this team, and Knapp is another piece of the puzzle they’re trying to put together.

Raider Fans, you’ve been through a lot these past ten years, but hang in there. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it might not be a train.

 

Super Bowl XI – Raiders break through

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Published at CSNBayArea.com on February 2nd, 2012

Much was made a few weeks ago about the 30th anniversary of “The Catch,” but this season is also a significant anniversary for the NFL team on the other side of the Bay. Thirty-five years ago, the Oakland Raiders won the first of their three Super Bowls, defeating the Minnesota Vikings 32-14.

For the Raiders, the victory was made sweeter by the fact that they had finally won “The Big One” after years of frustration. Oakland had played for a Super Bowl berth six times in the eight seasons between 1968 and 1975. It lost every one of those games and every single time, the victors went on to win the Super Bowl.

Thus, the 1976 season began with a huge weight on the shoulders of the Raiders, and especially coach John Madden and quarterback Ken Stabler.  As fate would have it, their very first game was against the team that had ended their previous two seasons, the Pittsburgh Steelers.  The Steelers took a 21-7 lead early in the fourth quarter, but the Raiders came storming back with 24 fourth-quarter points and won the game on a late field goal.

The Steelers and Raiders were famous for their dislike for one another, and things didn’t get any better in this game. Raiders safety George Atkinson knocked Steelers receiver Lynn Swann out with a forearm to the back of the head — on a running play. In fact, on the NFL Films highlight you can see Atkinson clock Swann — then a second later Franco Harris barrels past on a 25-yard run!

The comeback win, and the Atkinson-Swann incident, set the tone for the Raiders’ season. They barely survived games against Kansas City and Houston, and took a shaky 3-0 record to New England to face the Patriots. The Raiders were blown out, as Steve Grogan threw two TD passes to Darryl Stingley and ran for two more scores. The final score was 48-17.

As it turned out, that was the only game the Raiders lost in 1976. They had a couple of close calls, the closest being when Bears kicker Bob Thomas hit the upright on what would have been a game-winning field goal. Their biggest blowout of the season was a 49-16 win over the expansion Tampa Buccaneers led by QB Steve Spurrier.

The Raiders were unconventional on both sides of the ball. On offense, they were “left-handed,” with a southpaw QB in Stabler and perennial All-Pros Gene Upshaw and Art Shell at left guard and left tackle, respectively. Tight End Dave Casper often lined up on the left side, which was highly unusual at the time. They controlled the ball on the ground with an incredible line and backs Mark Van Eeghen and Clarence Davis, with Pete Banaszak coming off the bench when it was time to stick it in the end zone.

When defenses cheated up to play the run, they paid a terrible price. Flanker Cliff Branch, one of the most underrated players in NFL history, had his best season in 1976. He averaged a stunning 24.15 yards per catch, and scored 12 TDs. While he was stretching the field vertically, sticky-fingered split-end Fred Biletnikoff and Casper were finding holes underneath. Stabler completed exactly two-thirds of his 291 passes, leading the league by a fairly wide margin.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Raiders had changed to a 3-4 defense, still a pretty novel concept at the time.  The personnel was a combination of All-Pros (Ted Hendricks, Phil Villapiano, Willie Brown) and guys who came out of nowhere (Willie Hall, Monte Johnson, Skip Thomas). The result was a defense that was not easy to run on (10th in the NFL), which was a bigger deal back in 1976 than it is now.
There was little drama involving the AFC West, as the Raiders clinched the title in Week 12. The remaining intrigue in the regular season centered around Game 13, a Monday night matchup at home against the 9-3 Cincinnati Bengals. If Cincinnati won, the Steelers would have been eliminated from the playoffs, and more than one observer felt the Raiders would have been better served to lose to Cincinnati to avoid the red-hot Steel Curtain.

Madden, of course, was not interested in any such scenario, and he later called the 35-20 win over the Bengals one of the proudest of his career.

To start the playoffs, the Raiders had a rematch with the Patriots, the one team that had beaten them. The playoff game looked like a repeat, with New England taking a 21-10 lead into the 4th quarter in Oakland. Stabler dug into his bag of comebacks, however, and the Raiders survived to meet Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship for the third straight time.

Unfortunately for history, the Steeler team that played in Oakland that day was without both starting running backs, Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, and the Raiders rolled 24-7.

After six failures on the doorstep, the Raiders weren’t going to be fussy about how they finally got to the Super Bowl. Instead, they dealt out some misery of their own, handing the Minnesota Vikings their fourth Super Bowl loss, controlling the game from start to finish. Biletnikoff was named the game’s MVP, although he didn’t score any of the Raiders’ four TDs. He did have four catches for 79 yards, and three times was tackled at the Vikings’ 1-yard line.

It was a glorious day in Pasadena, the last outdoor day game in Super Bowl history, and as the Raiders carried John Madden off the field on their shoulders his grin was so wide that radio announcer Bill King said he looked “like a split watermelon.” It was the grin, finally, of a champion.

Thoughts on the 49ers-Steelers Game Monday Night

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Published December 21st, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

Before I get into my thoughts about Monday Night’s 49er victory, there’s something I need to get off my chest. I don’t want to hear anyone blaming fans for selling their tickets to “the enemy.” This is America.  When you own something, you have the right to do whatever you want with it.  A fan buying a season ticket has one obligation: make sure the check clears. After that, he can go to the games, sell the tickets, set them on fire, etc.

It’s the team’s job, in my opinion, to create a product and an atmosphere so compelling that anyone holding a ticket would feel like they were missing something if they didn’t go. I don’t remember a lot of talk about 49er fans selling their tickets in the 1980s and ’90s, do you?

On to the game. It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement surrounding the 49ers’ thrashing of the Pittsburgh Steelers Monday night, but there is one big reason to resist. I’ll get to that, but first allow me to highlight the things that went exactly as fans hoped:

The offense scored two red-zone TDs
This has been the single biggest concern this season, and during the first half it was still looming. First-and-goal at the 2-yard line? Sorry, guys, that has to be a TD.  When the 49ers challenged a call that ruled Vernon Davis out at the 1-yard-line in the second half, announcers on both TV and radio simultaneously claimed that the challenge was due to the team’s struggles scoring from in close (How do I know? I watch the game with the sound up and listen to the radio in one ear. Pretty normal, huh?). The fact that they got two red-zone TDs, with relative ease, was a great relief to everyone in the stadium not dressed in black and yellow (More on that later).

Special Teams continue to be, well, special
Andy Lee had one of his best games ever, and for a guy who’s been as good for as long as he has, that’s significant. The highlight was when he (with the aid of a Pittsburgh penalty) completely “flipped the field.” The 49ers were on their own 12-yard line when Lee, punting from near the goal line, sent a soaring punt all the way to the Steelers’ 26. The ball was returned, as long kicks like that often are, but there was a holding penalty on the kick that was marked off 10 yards from the spot of the catch. By the time the Steelers lined up on their 16-yard-line, the net on the play was 72 yards!

Overall, the kick coverage units continued to excel for San Francisco.
The Steelers didn’t start one drive outside their own 30-yard line. This has been a constant for the 49ers this season, and is an overlooked part of how successful their defense has been.

Aldon Smith looks like the steal of the draft
This guy is incredible. Justin Smith told postgame interviewers “He just has the ability to get skinny and slip through there.” The rookie will continue to draw more and more resources from opposing offenses, and open up more opportunities for the rest of the line to pressure the QB. He broke the team’s rookie record for sacks, and he had another one nullified because of an illegal contact in the secondary. His rush was so impressive that, rather than show the penalty, the TV producers showed two replays of him sacking Ben Roethlisberger even though it didn’t count.

This 49er coaching staff will not be outcoached by anyone
People are heaping credit upon Jim Harbaugh for the team’s turnaround, and he deserves every bit of it. He’s going to be a runaway winner of the NLF Coach of the Year award, even if the San Francisco loses its last two games. What has gone unnoticed, especially on the national level, is that the most important thing he did was assemble an incredible coaching staff. In Vic Fangio, Greg Roman and Brad Seely, he has three coordinators who are all at the top of their game. The position coaches are all great teachers, and player after player has said that the biggest difference between this year and last has been the clarity of the lessons to be learned. The prior staff would talk about what they wanted done, this staff tells the players how to do it.

Now, here’s the stuff 49er fans don’t want to hear:

The 49ers did not beat an elite QB Monday night
First, spare me all the stuff about how everyone has injuries, they don’t matter, the result is everything. That’s all true except when you’re trying to get a handle on how good a team really is. The sad truth is that Roethlisberger, for all of his courage and toughness, was a shell of his usual self on Monday, and still he threw for over 300 yards. More importantly, he converted eight out of 14 first downs. His inability to move around and keep the play alive, probably his biggest asset, was what led to his interceptions and his sacks.  I’m giving the 49ers credit for playing well.  I’m not prepared to say that if these teams met with a healthy No. 7, the result would not have been dramatically different.

OK, I hear you, you’re talking about the 49ers being without Patrick Willis. Well, the Steelers didn’t have James Harrison, and if you don’t think that was a factor in Alex Smith keeping his uniform clean, you’re not paying attention.

I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter that the 49ers won the game. If they had lost to a Steelers team with a banged up Big Ben and no Harrison, it would have been a really bad sign. I’m just saying we need to keep the win in perspective. They should win their next two games, and their biggest test will be New Orleans in Round 2. If they win that one, I’m convinced.

49ers Still an Unknown Quantity

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Published December 2nd 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

Why is it that we always have to know how things are going to end up? Ever since the 49ersstarted to string a few games together, there’s been a rush among media and fans to figure out exactly how good they are and exactly how far they’ll go in the playoffs.

I blame the microwave oven. In the days before you could cook a turkey in 12 minutes, I think we all had a little more patience.

The interesting thing about how this season has unfolded is that instead of each game providing more clarity on the question, the opposite has been true.

Let’s review:

Week 1: Beat the Seahawks. A minor upset, but with the lockout nobody knew what to expect, and Ted Ginn Jr. had those two return TDs, which was a fluke. No answers.

Week 2: Lost to the Cowboys in OT. This was actually a major accomplishment for the 49ers, but everyone was so focused on Harbaugh’s decision to leave 3 points on the board that the fact they’d nearly beat a pretty good team was lost. Good sign, but still a loss, and no answers.

Week 3: Beat the Bengals. Significant because the team had struggled so mightily in games in the Eastern time zone, but Cincinnati had a rookie QB and the game was Capital U-Ugly, so no answers.

Week 4: Big comeback to beat the Eagles. Ironically, this looked like a bigger win at the time than it does now.  Since this game, the 49ers are 6-1, and the Eagles are 3-4, so in the rearview mirror it looks like it was a game S.F. should have won. Sure didn’t feel like it at the time, but now we have to say: No answers.

Week 5:  Crushed Tampa Bay. Alas, because Tampa Bay is not going to be anywhere near the playoffs, this is another feels-good-but-no-answer game.

Week 6: Beat the previously undefeated Lions. Huge win at the time. Big fourth-down play from Alex Smith to win the game. Even though the Lions have faded somewhat since then (and played a very soft early schedule), this game does stand out as one that gave a hint that this 49er team could be pretty special. Call it Answer
No. 1. Can they win a game on the road against a good team? Yes.

Week 7: Bye week. Still could have provided some answers, but didn’t. Of the 49ers’ previous opponents, the Seahawks, Lions and Bucs all lost, and the Cowboys stomped a very feeble Rams team. No answers.

Week 8: Beat the Browns. Lackluster effort, trouble converting red zone opportunities, could have won by 30, but, on the other hand, there was never a minute in the game when it looked like they could lose. No answers.

Week 9: Beat the Redskins. Carbon copy of the Browns game, except it was on the road, and the fact they put together two games like that in a row made it start to look like Answer No. 2: Can they beat poor teams fairly easily, which is the first thing that separates playoff teams from non-playoff teams? Yes.

Week 10: Beat the Giants. This win, like the one against the Eagles, is not standing the test of time. The Giants were 6-2 coming in to Candlestick, but they’re 6-5 now. While they’re only one game back in the NFC East, they looked so pathetic against New Orleans Monday night that it’s hard to imagine them doing any damage even if they make the playoffs. No answer.

Week 11: Beat Arizona. Like the games against Cleveland and Washington, this game held positive and negative messages for 49er fans. On the plus side, they were never in danger of losing the game. On the negative side, they probably should have scored 50 points, and it was a dizzying array of mistakes that kept them from doing so. For the first time all season, special teams didn’t look special. No answer.

Week 12: Lost to Baltimore: For a lot of fans, it seems that this loss was a sign that the 49ers are not as good as they looked in the first 10 games. I completely disagree. I think, while they obviously would have preferred a win, there was a very positive outcome in this game. People like to talk about how there are no excuses in football, but this was the first time a team flew across three time zones to play on three days rest. I don’t see how, when evaluating what a game result means in the context of the season, you can fail to factor in a team having basically one practice day to prepare for an opponent as good as the Ravens. They had a TD called back on a penalty and the Ravens got a pass interference call that led to their TD. So Answer No. 3: Can they compete with a perennial playoff team on the road, even on a short week? Yes.

Twelve weeks, and only three answers. There are five games to go, and four of the games are ones that they should win. The only remaining opportunity to really make a statement is against Pittsburgh, and even if they lose that game they should finish second in the NFC and have a first-round bye in the playoffs.

So, like that slow-roasting turkey of yesteryear, we have to wait until the remaining five games of the season are played to really have an idea of what this team has accomplished. After waiting almost 10 years for the 49ers to get back to the playoffs, it doesn’t seem like that much to ask.

49ers Face Toughest Test

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Published November 11, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

First of all, I want to acknowledge what many 49er fans are feeling this week, which is that old feeling of anticipation about a game on Sunday. This season has been a wonderful ride, but because of the nature of today’s NFL, there haven’t been many Sundays when you had that feeling in your stomach and couldn’t wait for the game.

There are milestones that teams must pass on their way from where the 49ers have been to where they seem headed, and one of them presents itself this week.
The New York Giants represent a rarity in today’s NFL: An historically good team that’s playing well this season. There are six teams with two or fewer losses, but only three — the Giants, the Packers and the Ravens — have been consistent playoff teams over the past several years. The rest are upstarts — the 49ers, Bengals and Lions.

You can make a case that the 49ers are the best team in that latter group. They beat both of the other teams on the road, and while the margins were slim, both wins were, you guessed it, milestones for an improving team. The Cincinnati win was their first in the Eastern Time Zone in recent memory, and the Lions were 5-0 when the 49ers showed up.

The Giants haven’t been dominating this year; they lost to the Redskins in their opener, and somehow lost to Seattle at home. They barely beat Arizona and Miami after trailing for much of those games. But they have three quality wins, Philadelphia, Buffalo and, last week, New England in Foxboro and a lineup that features a QB and several other key players who won a Super Bowl.

You could probably make a good argument that the 49ers should win this game two weeks ago, but the Giants’ win over the Pats last week makes a huge difference. More important was the way they won, coming back after Tom Brady threw for what seemed to be the winning TD, with Eli Manning moving them right back down the field for the win. They’re a team coming into Candlestick Park with an impressive combination of confidence and talent.

I’m not saying that the 49ers are outclassed in this matchup. I think they can win, and Las Vegas agrees with me. It just seems as if 49er fans have a newfound confidence in their team that has gotten a little out of hand, in my opinion, and I don’t hear the Giants getting the respect they deserve.

The 49ers have made big steps — first, beat somebody, anybody! Then come back from a devastating loss. Next, win a road game in the Eastern Time Zone. Now do that again, but against a better team, and let’s spot them, say, a 20-point lead. The win in Detroit was crucial, too. Alex Smith delivering the pass on fourth down was a personal milestone for him, and provided the team one as well. They had beaten an undefeated team in Week 6, and even if Detroit’s schedule was a little soft to that point (and it was), very few teams make it to 5-0 no matter whom they play.

After a bye week, there was another milestone.  To be considered a very good team, you need to beat lousy teams without drama. The 49ers did that not once, but twice in the past two weeks. Cleveland is terrible in every way, and the Redskins aren’t much better.  The only complaint 49er fans could have in either of those games was that the score didn’t reflect the extent to which they were the better team. They moved up and down the field at will, but stalled in the red zone, and that is evidently going to have to be a future milestone because they’re not ready for it yet.

Red zone frustrations aside, neither Cleveland nor Washington were ever a threat to beat the 49ers, and that is a remarkable thing to say about the season this football team is having. San Francisco has practically locked up a playoff berth, so what remains in the regular season is to beat one of the following teams: Giants, Steelers, Ravens. If the 49ers can do that, and win even four of their remaining five division games, they’ll have carved out a 12-win season for themselves, possibly a first-round bye, and the confidence of knowing that they can play with the best teams in the NFL.

And that, 49er fans, is why you’ve had that feeling in your stomach all week. Might as well get used to it, your team is going to play some very big games this year.

Al Davis’ Training Wheels Have Come Off for Hue Jackson

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Written October 24, 2011

The guy facing the most heat today in the Bay Area is Hue Jackson, rookie head coach of the Oakland Raiders. Just last week Jackson seemed in total command of the situation, having dealt firmly and swiftly with a crisis, and he was enjoying playing games with the media regarding his starting QB for Sunday’s game.

That game, of course, was a complete disaster, made worse, in my opinion by Jackson’s decision to throw Carson Palmer to the wolves in the second half with the game already on its way to defcon 5. Worse yet, the post-game press conference revealed that Jackson and Palmer might have been on the same bus, but each was open to the idea of throwing the other under it.

Friday, we learned (courtesy of The Game 95.7 FM) that Jason Campbell learned of Palmer’s acquisition via texts from his friends. Two days after his injury, and one after his surgery, and no contact from the team regarding its decision to essentially end his days as the starting quarterback.

After the events of the last week or so, I started thinking about Al Davis. When Al hired a coach, he almost always hired one without experience. Sometimes they were young men (Madden, Gruden, Kiffen), and sometimes they were not (Shell, Callahan, Shanahan), but they didn’t have head coaching on their resumes. Obviously, Davis was a control freak, and there was a trade-off going on. Davis was going to put training wheels on the bike, and the coaches were willing to put up with that in exchange for the opportunity to be a head coach.

The problem, of course, would come when Davis and his coach would disagree about when it was time to take off the training wheels, which happened every single time.  Sometimes those disagreements ended with a bang (Cable, Kiffin, Shanahan, Gruden) sometimes with a whimper (Callahan, Shell, Shell).

In Jackson’s case, however, the damn things just fell off, leaving him to fend for himself. Like most first time riders, when you first let go they do okay, but the further they go, the wobblier they get, and that’s exactly what we got from Jackson. The day after Davis’ passing the Raiders were still the “Pride and Poise Boys.” The week after his passing, they said and did everything right. It was interesting, though, that Campbell’s injury came just a few minutes before the halftime ceremony honoring Davis, and suddenly that bike was careening down the sidewalk.

The Raiders almost lost that game to Cleveland, due in part to an inexplicable decision by Jackson to pass up a field goal that would have iced the game.  Immediately after the game, the Raiders started examining their options at QB, decided on Palmer, and started negotiating with the Bengals. By Tuesday, the deal was all but done, and the price was steep. Most observers doubted whether Davis would have signed off on that deal, and many of us (myself included) thought that was a good sign for the team.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday came and went, and all we saw was Jackson holding court with the media, playing coy about whom he would start. We found out Sunday after the game that Boller was the starter all the way, and that Palmer, according to comments he made, didn’t make a pass in practice with pads on all week.

Okay, hold on here for a minute. I enjoy the cloak-and-dagger part of football as much as the next guy, and lord knows Al Davis would have loved it, but when you have a QB that doesn’t make a pass with pads on, that guy doesn’t play on Sunday! You can actually make an argument that if he’s that far away from being ready to play, you shouldn’t have given up a 1st and 2nd round pick for him in the first place, but all that aside, there’s no way he plays that week in the game.

The Raider fans were rightfully shocked and dismayed with the outcome of the game, although I feel that the post-game revelations were far more concerning than what happened on the field. Palmer was saying that he didn’t expect to play. Jackson was saying that getting Palmer in the game was part of the plan all along. Let’s examine that for a second. What were we told was the reason why this move was destined for success for the Raiders? Why, it was the close relationship between Jackson and Palmer, wasn’t it? Jackson recruited Palmer to USC, and the two were both survivors of that toxic Bengals situation. That can form a real bond between people!

So tell me again how just a few minutes after the first game of this grand new venture these two men can be telling the media completely opposite accounts of their expectations regarding the plan? To me, that communication breakdown, combined with the failure of the team to be forthright with Campbell, are red flags for me concerning Hue Jackson.

Jackson was exposed last week as a rookie coach who thought he was bigger than the moment, and it turned out he was wrong. He careened down the sidewalk, and the bike overturned in the street. Luckily, no cars were coming, while he got pretty banged up, he gets to ride again.  I think it’s also pretty clear that Amy Trask and Mark Davis need to get a football guy in there as soon as possible to help Jackson. He’s learning how to be a head coach, and to have him also managing these kind of situations is like asking your kid to learn bike-riding and juggling at the same time…without training wheels.

America’s Tebow Obsession

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Published November 18, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

This is not about football. I thought I’d better start with that, this being a sports website and all. I would have hated for someone to read the whole thing and then feel ripped off because there was nothing about “release points” or “technique.”

This is an attempt to explain why Tim Tebow is the most polarizing figure in sports today, and maybe outside of sports as well.

First of all, I’m going to give Raiders fans a pass on the whole Tebow thing. While most of America is grappling over the issue, for Raiders fans it’s pretty simple. The guy wears a Broncos jersey to work. That’s pretty much game over for them.

The fact that he’s apparently revived a division rival that seemed to be dead on the side of the road, they don’t like that very much either. Throw in the way he ran through, around and over the Raiders a few weeks ago, and you can bet that the mere sight of No. 15 is enough to get their blood boiling.

OK, the Raiders fans are sedated and in the other room watching the Super Bowl XI highlight video. Now we can get down to the topic at hand:

What is it about this guy that makes him so easy for critics to dismiss and deride, yet there are also people who would “Forrest Gump” him at the drop of a hat (meaning run behind him from one end of the country to the other for no reason).

Most people aren’t trying to answer this question, by the way. They’ve picked their side, and now they’re rooting like crazy for him to succeed or fail depending on their choice.

There’s another question, however, that is beginning to work its way through the minds of America’s sports fans, and it’s being discussed around thousands of water coolers today: How in the world does he do it?

How does he win these games? How can he play like Clark Kent for 55 minutes, and then turn into Superman for the last 5 (plus overtime, if necessary)? And especially, why do defensive players and special teams guys seem to play so much better when he’s the quarterback, even though they don’t occupy the field at the same time?

Here’s my theory, and it’s pretty simple, really. He’s a really, really good guy. OK, that’s not a news flash, even his detractors always mention it. Here’s why it’s significant, though, in my view: Goodness is very easy to deride and demean, but only from a distance. When you actually come face-to-face with goodness, it’s much harder to have such a negative viewpoint about it.

That’s why the people who believe in Tim Tebow the most are the ones who actually know him. The ones who have looked in his eyes, either in the locker room, on the practice field, or, the past few weeks, in the huddle and on the sidelines. They see the goodness up close.

There was nothing not to like last night about Tebow. He stood up on the podium after the game, complimented his teammates and coaches, explained in considerable detail what went into the winning play, smiled a lot, and seemed very happy to be Tim Tebow.

In another time, Tebow would be a national hero, not a controversial figure. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we live in a world in which cynicism is often rewarded. Our entertainment is largely watching “real people” on TV doing things that allow us to laugh at them, not with them. Here’s a clean-cut, religious, polite, humble guy who, by the way, wins football games in bunches and always has.  What’s not to like? What part of that package would you not show your child and say, “That’s how it’s done?”

But we’re cynical, remember? So we don’t trust Tebow. There must be something wrong with him, right? Nobody’s that good, not even Joe Paterno, for goodness sakes! We are not going to fall for whatever he’s selling, so we can feel good about ourselves when he has his inevitable fall from grace. That’s part of being human, and it’s why we protect ourselves with all manner of defense mechanisms to keep from getting hurt or disappointed.

Here’s the crux of the matter: Goodness is attractive, but it’s also threatening.  Everywhere this guy goes he draws people to him, and he makes them feel better about themselves. Any success expert will tell you that’s at least half the battle, whether you’re trying to sell copiers or win football games.

If you don’t know him personally, though, it’s very easy to see the goodness as arrogance. We assume he thinks he’s better than us because maybe deep down we think he might actually be better than us. That gives us two choices, rise to his level or bring him down to ours, and it doesn’t take long to figure out the path most of us will take given those options. So we pick away at him, even while he goes about the business of winning football games.

I think what it boils down to is that what we think about Tim Tebow says more about us than it does about him. He gives us the opportunity to feel good about someone who is genuinely good, and as time goes on I believe more and more people will take that opportunity.

There will always be people, though, that can’t give in to that, who won’t allow themselves to let their guard down even for a minute lest they be taken for naïve, gullible, or foolish.

Then there are the people who can’t get past the Broncos jersey. That’s OK, Raiders fans. I don’t think even Tebow would want it any other way.

If The NCAA Can Get Replay Right, How Hard Can it Be? MLB, Pay Attention!

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Published on October 24, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

Baseball’s refusal to take instant replay seriously has evolved from a minor nuisance to a full-blown disaster over the past several years, and it reared its ugly head again in Game 3 of the World Series. Well, actually, it sent a little warning shot in Game 2, as well.

The Game 2 play I’m referring to was the ball hit by Adrian Beltre in the ninth inning that looked from every replay angle like it changed direction after hitting his foot, before caroming out to shortstop. The ball was ruled a fair ball, and Beltre was an easy out at first base. Fox’s new  “TSA Scan-Cam,” as I like to call it, showed a small white dot on Beltre’s toe, in case the physical reality of a ball hit down and to the left that suddenly went to the shortstop wasn’t enough evidence of the ball’s foul-ness. Readers of a certain age will recall the Warren Commission report on the JFK assassination as using similar logic to that of the umpires on Thursday night.

That play was fairly quickly forgotten, because, after all, the best Beltre could have gotten out of the situation was another pitch to hit from the Cardinals’ flame-throwing closer, so you can’t make a concrete case that the call changed the outcome of the game.
Besides, on Saturday night the umpiring crew, allegedly selected on merit these days, presented proponents of instant replay with some real honest-to-goodness ammunition. They blew a call that prolonged an inning that produced four St. Louis runs, an excellent head start in a game the Cards wound up winning 16-7.  Many baseball experts have attempted to make the point that the call didn’t cost the Rangers the game, but I don’t see how you can definitively say that. Get that call right, and there are two outs with nobody on, which the percentages tell you is a big difference from one on, one out.

Rangers pitcher Matt Harrison, who had been pretty effective so far, got the next batter to top a ball toward first. With two out, that’s an easy play to second or first, but Mike Napoli tried to get the runner at home and threw it away, allowing two runs to score. Harrison, who should have been on the bench watching his team hit, then allowed a single and a ground-ball out (the fourth out of the inning, by my count, but only the second official one), and was removed by Ron Washington.

So not only did the Cardinals get four gift runs from the blown call, but they got the Rangers’ starter out of the game, and there’s no way to know how that impacted the outcome. This was not just any game, it was Texas’ first home game, and the game after the Rangers had wrestled home-field advantage away from St. Louis. They had it, if not taken away from them, made a much more difficult task than it would have been had MLB had any kind of decent instant replay system.

We know these things have happened in baseball for years, and one of the most ironic things about Game 3 was that the beneficiary was the St. Louis Cardinals, the team that got the worst hose job of all time in 1985. They were in the process of putting away the Kansas City Royals in Game 6 when Don Denkinger went to sleep on a play at first base, opening the door for a Royals rally that not only won that game but carried right through Game 7.

Back in 1985, however, instant replay was still considered a technological marvel, and we all had kind of a Star Trek “don’t change the course of history” attitude toward it. There was the “human error has always been part of the game” argument, which is one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said. The NFL was still years away from getting its act together, and I don’t remember anyone suggesting that baseball should start using replays to get calls right.

But time marches on, and the NFL, college football, the NHL and the NBA have incorporated some form of instant replay. The best MLB has been able to do is to look at replays to determine whether home runs were actually home runs, which comes into play a handful of times per year. Other fair/foul calls and outs on the bases have been distinctly excluded from review, leaving the umpires to just “do their best,” which has never really been good enough.

The folly that is MLB’s stance on replay was made clear just about two hours after the blown World Series call. Wisconsin and Michigan State had played 59 minutes and 56 seconds of inspired football with tons at stake for both schools. Wisconsin was playing to remain undefeated and a candidate for a BCS championship game berth, and Michigan State was playing to stay in the hunt for the Big 10 Championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl.

With :04 on the clock and the score tied, Michigan State launched a Hail Mary pass that wound up in the hands of one of their receivers on the 2 yard line. He immediately put his head down and tried to get in the end zone, but was thrown back by two defenders. The referees called him down on the 1, and the game was going to overtime. Except that every play in every college game is reviewed by a replay official, and after a very short period of time the announcement came that the call had been overturned and it was indeed a touchdown.

In real time, it looked like the refs had gotten it right, but the first look at a goal-line replay showed that the ball had broken the plane of the goal line ever so briefly. If the Badgers had gone on to win in OT it would have been a faulty verdict, and should they have played for the BCS championship the whole season would have been a sham. Because of instant replay, that won’t happen.

There’s no way that college football can do this and Major League Baseball can’t. I could go on and on about the reasons they’ve given in the past, but the debate is over.  Human error on the part of the players we can’t fix, but we can help those human umpires, and we need to.

Al Davis’ Passing Means I’m Free to Root for the Raiders Again!

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Warning: This column will be seen by some as politically incorrect. Anyone sensitive to references to people no longer living that are not 100% gush may want to move to the next link.

I didn’t like Al Davis. There, I said it. Like anyone else who’s been paying attention the past 40 or so years, I understand and respect his impact on the game and the society around the game, but as a human being, the man had flaws like everyone else. Actually, like his talents, even his flaws were bigger than most people’s

First, here’s a little background about me, just for context sake. I grew up in San Francisco, rooting in equal measure for the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, A’s and Warriors. (Sorry, Seals, I tried, but you weren’t on TV enough for me to grasp your game). I felt that all of those teams were “mine,” and felt the joy of victory and pain of defeat as each of them moved through the highs and lows of the 70’s and 80’s. There were some great days, of course, but the worst was “Black Saturday,” the day the Raiders lost on the Immaculate Reception and the 49ers blew a 3-score lead to the Cowboys on the very same afternoon.

Unfortunately, my love for the Raiders was not enough to keep them in Oakland. Al Davis moved the team to Los Angeles. I was angry, and unlike many Raider fans, I never got over it. When he brought the team back, it was even worse, like having someone you used to love deeply move back to town and act like they never tore your heart out.

Over the past several years, I have enjoyed how the team devolved into a dysfunctional mess. To me it was obvious that Davis was way past his “sell by” date as a general manager, and his press conferences each time he hired a new coach proved my point.  The highlight was the “Lane Kiffin Period,” as I like to call it, and if there were ever two people in football who deserved each other more, I don’t know about it. My opinion is that Al Davis was keeping that team from succeeding, just as surely has he had made it succeed 20 years earlier.

This season, however, started off a little differently. I’ve followed Hue Jackson’s career since he was an assistant coach at UOP in the mid-80’s, and while I was glad to see him get the opportunity to be an NFL head coach, I felt that his tenure would be marred by the usual series of strange decisions and events that torpedoed Cable, Kiffin, Callahan, and every other head coach since Tom Flores. The first few games of the season looked very familiar. Underperforming team, blow a big lead in Buffalo, piling up penalties, you know the drill.

Then Al Davis passed away. Let’s look at what’s happened since: Big win on the road in Houston.  Withstood the loss of the starting QB and beat Cleveland. A blockbuster deal, one that Al Davis would not have made, to fill that QB hole.  They’re playing exciting football, and making exciting moves to try to win this season. What’s not to like?

The Raiders also are working behind the scenes in the NFL to try to get the league to tone down the violent image it conveys to TV audiences. They have begged/cajoled/pressured the TV networks to show families at their games having a good time, not just the psychos in the “Black Hole.”   In my opinion, the NFL’s decision to jettison Hank Williams, Jr. from the Monday Night telecast was more about the “rowdy friends” image from which they’re trying to move away than anything he said about the president. I give Amy Trask and the Raiders some credit for that.

The irony is that I’ve spent the last ten years in the belief that Al Davis was holding back the Raiders. If I was right, they need to win now to prove it. That’s not the best reason ever to root for a football team, but it’s good enough for me. I’m on board the Silver and Black bandwagon from this point forward. One thing, though: I’m going to need a bigger seat than I had back in 1981, so scoot over, wouldja?