Admit it, you didn’t want Alex Smith back as the 49ers’ starting quarterback. Not this year. Not last.
Let’s clear the air about the transformation we’ve witnessed. Not just in Smith, but in 49ers fans. Talk about letting bygones be bygones.
When Smith steps under center this morning at Ford Field in Detroit, the Niner Nation will be rooting for him to succeed. That hasn’t always been the case the past few years.
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Alex Smith this afternoon or the Giants this offseason both have plenty to prove.
After seven days of the 49er Faithful pushing his bandwagon, Smith has to build upon the “cold-blooded” status he earned during last week’s upset of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Smith showed he can win a big game against a good team. Definitely a step forward.
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As the sun finally set on the Giants’ defense of their first Bay Area world championship, another clock started ticking.
There can be no more delay. There can be no more if Brandon Belt develops, and Aubrey Huff rebounds or buts connected to Barry Zito’s contract. The Giants need to prove to Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain that there will be legitimate run support in their future.
Otherwise, the future of both aces may not be in the Bay Area.
This is not a slap at the franchise or the area. This is simply common sense.
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Welcome to chance No. 3 for Alex Smith and the 49ers’ offensive unit to earn the trust of their new coach.
They clearly don’t have it yet, and, unfortunately, going into this morning’s game in Cincinnati against the Bengals, that fact has already cost this team one victory.
Chalk it up to the short preseason. Or the fact that Jim Harbaugh is still getting to know his players in person. Or Alex Smith’s history.
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Welcome to Chapter 2 in the developing relationship between Alex Smith and 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, a relationship that has to grow. And grow quickly if the 49ers are to make anything out of this season.
This brand-new bond has to develop more dimensions for 49ers fans to chew on than was displayed in Week 1 when Smith played as conservatively as humanly possible — which was a positive — for the veteran of six disappointing years.
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Ready, set, go. Only forget the ready, set.
It’s full speed ahead into the next era of 49ers football, on display for the first time this afternoon at Candlestick Park. No learning curve allowed for Jim Harbaugh in his debut as an NFL coach.
That’s because today’s game against the Seattle Seahawks is the first must-win of the year for Harbaugh and the 49ers. This begins a three-game, season-opening set that this team has to make the most of.
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At least for the 49ers, there’s a glimmer of hope.
It took until the final opening quarter of the preseason for the 49ers to provide the first piece of evidence that could be parlayed into a possible recipe for success in 2011.
Unfortunately, a single quarter against a group of half-hearted San Diego Chargers does little more than edge the 49ers from no-shots into long shots.
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Imagine the Giants as a fighter.
Early in the bout for 2011, they took a potential knockout blow when Buster Posey went down. They absorbed a stiff uppercut when Pablo Sandoval went on the disabled list.
But they kept punching, scoring enough late-inning victories to keep themselves ahead on points.
It was a solid right to the midsection when Freddy Sanchez went down. They took the worst of a counter-punch exchange when the Barry Zito-Jonathan Sanchez disabled list dance began.
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The Giants have taken their tortuous season to a level that only the best Hollywood screenwriters could describe.
The sputtering, suddenly comeback-free, post-Carlos Beltran Giants take the field this afternoon against the Astros in Houston in clear danger of losing contact with the Arizona Diamondbacks, which would classify as a genuine disaster.
Earlier this week, manager Bruce Bochy tried to calm the masses by reminding everybody that this is August, and that there’s plenty of baseball left to play.
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Maybe playing this “torture” brand of baseball is even more difficult than we thought.
These new-look Giants are certainly struggling to do it.
There is no way it could be labeled as a step backward by adding Carlos Beltran, Orlando Cabrera and Jeff Keppinger to the how-are-they-doing-this roster the Giants were fielding the early parts of July.
After watching the likes of Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, Emmanuel Burriss, Bill Hall and Mike Fontenot parade through the Giants’ lineup, everybody agreed help was needed.
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Who knew “better on paper” might translate to worse on the field?
Unfortunately, that’s the quandary the Giants found themselves in right after Brian Sabean worked his trade-deadline magic.
But honestly, did you expect it to go any other way for Giants fans? Nothing comes easy in China Basin. Torture begets more torture begets, aw, you know the rest.
You can tell a Giants fan by their fingernails. Or lack there of.
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Suddenly the 49ers faithful need some good news. And quick.
Losing center-guard David Baas right out of the free-agency starting gate was not what 49ers fans were imagining when they were cheering the end of the NFL lockout.
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As their patched-up jalopy of an offense huffs, puffs and wheezes toward the trade deadline, I’ll wonder aloud whether the 2011 version of the Giants has what it takes to shift gears into postseason overdrive like it did a year ago.
While there are plenty of similarities to last year’s roster that rolled to The City’s first World Series title, upon closer inspection, there are some significant gaps between last October’s Giants and the bunch Bruce Bochy trots out there these days.
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The extraordinary tale of Pablo Sandoval feels like it just gets more extraordinary at every turn.
Standing at second base after a ground-rule double on baseball’s grandest celebration of its talent — the 82nd All-Star Game earlier this week — Sandoval gave off not a hint of the wild ride his career as a Giant has been so far.And if the past nine months haven’t squeezed a complaint out of him, I don’t think anything will.
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At some point this Giants season, somebody’s got to notice.
So far, the story of the 2011 Giants is not pretty.
Ace Tim Lincecum, owner of two NL Cy Young Awards and a World Series ring, is struggling to post a .500 record.Buster Posey is lost for the season after playing just 45 games.
Pablo Sandoval has been out of the lineup as often as he’s been in it.
Andres Torres is coming up as invisible in 2011 as he was inspiring in 2010.
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