Fans have always been convinced they know exactly how to improve their teams, and they express their views in emails and blogs.
Right now, I’m being besieged by A’s fans who bemoan their team’s lack of hitting. One suggested they should pick up Milton Bradley, just released by the Seattle Mariners.
I don’t think so. The A’s had Bradley once, and he helped them in the 2006 postseason. But the team also had Frank Thomas, who could talk to Bradley, and Ken Macha, a manager he respected. They have neither of those components now.
Read More
The entirety of the NFL’s offseason came and went in a blink.
There wasn’t enough to it to be anything more than a subplot to the league’s draft.
Players were there and then they were gone, locks securely back in place. However, in that single afternoon where fans were actually free to think about football again, everything about the 2011 season changed for 49ers fans. Alex Smith got a playbook.
And you thought the Giants had cornered the market on torture.
Read More
As expected, the 49ers went for defense with their first-round pick in the NFL draft last night, but they threw a bit of a curve in picking Missouri defensive end-outside linebacker Aldon Smith, who had not been mentioned in any of the pre-draft speculation.
Despite all the talk about the team needing a quarterback, pass defense has been the No. 1 problem for the Niners. Opposing teams who are trailing by less than a touchdown with two minutes to go have known that a “W” is pretty much guaranteed if they just throw the ball. The 49ers couldn’t stop that.
Read More
The San Francisco 49ers has chosen a company to sell the naming rights for the proposed stadium in Santa Clara, the team announced Wednesday.The 49ers is teaming up with CAA Sports, an entertainment and sports agency, to sell the naming rights for the proposed $937 million stadium. CAA Sports is a division of Creative Artists Agency, which represents more than 650 athletes in baseball, football, hockey, basketball, soccer, tennis and golf, in addition to coaches, on-air broadcasters, and sports personalities.
Read More
The commissioner, Roger Goodell, says the NFL Draft is one of his favorite events. “Because,” he told USA Today, “it’s all about football.” Apparently so is the honorable Susan Richard Nelson, who has decided people who play it for a living, well, ought to be able to play it for a living.
Nelson is the U.S. District judge in St. Paul, Minn., who ordered an end to the lockout declared last month by the owners against the players.
For the moment at least, we can think about picks not plaintiffs, defenders not defendants.
Read More
When 49ers general manager Trent Baalke met with the media this week, he was asked if the 49ers will take a quarterback in the NFL draft next week. “Yes,” he said, “but I’m not sure whether it will be in round one or round seven or somewhere in between.”
I doubt that it will be as late as round seven, unless that’s the second quarterback they pick, but I also doubt they’ll go for one with their first pick, at No. 7 in the first round.
Read More
Jim Harbaugh will make his 49ers coaching debut against and old nemesis – Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks.
The two NFC West rivals will open the season – pending the resolution of the NFL labor discord – Sept. 11 at Candlestick Park. Harbaugh and Carroll developed quite the college rivalry when the former was at Stanford and the latter at Southern Cal.
Read More
While things remain warm and fuzzy in the Arizona desert for our World Series champions, the forecast has turned stormy on the offseason horizon for our can’t-get-a-break 49ers.
Without boring everybody about who’s right or what’s what in football labor speak, the consensus says the rest of this NFL offseason is going to be one wild scramble. And it appears like the 49ers wind up on the short end of the lockout stick.
When football resumes, teams in transition — like the 49ers are with new coach Jim Harbaugh — figure to be at a disadvantage.
Read More
Brian Sabean, the man who helped build the Giants into champions, said San Francisco has become a baseball city. Unquestionably. Yet, it is no less a football city, as we were reminded the other evening.The 49ers came first, a Bay Area original in 1946. The 49ers won first, at least in San Francisco, as their Super Bowl victory in 1982 came after titles by the A’s and Raiders.
Read More
It would be a cruel joke on San Francisco 49ers fans if NFL owners locked out players just as the 49ers appear to be getting their house in order.Newly appointed general manager Trent Baalke seems to be organizing the front office well.Baalke and his assistants can proceed much as they would in any year because their chief job now is preparing for the April draft, which involves college players who are not yet part of the NFL Players Association.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/archive/105/105?page=40&type=&quicktabs_6=0
