Almost nothing about the 49ers 2010 season makes sense. The 0-5 start. The fact the team was still—somehow, with its embarrassing 5-9 record—a playoff contender going into yesterday's game against the Rams in St. Louis. The odd shuffling of two mediocre quarterbacks named Smith. The firing of the offensive coordinator after a debate over whether he enunciated his play calls clearly enough for the quarterback to understand them. Coach Mike Singletary's disconnected, unfocused, often irritable post-game analyses.
And this morning, with Singletary's firing, we can add one more hallmark moment to the team's Year of Stumbling and Fumbling. Far be it from us, who can only sometimes throw a nice tight spiral, to tell the folks who run the 49ers how to run their business. But you gotta wonder how getting rid of the coach now, far too late to make a difference in the season but just in time to complete the impression of an organization in disarray, will help things.
(Singletary himself had this to say as he left the team's headquarters in Santa Clara last night: "They have their reasons. And for me, they want a figure that can figure out the chemistry," the coach said. "I want everybody to know that I'm extremely appreciative of the opportunity. The people I'll miss will be the players.")
Now let's turn over the commentating and football reporting to people who do it for a living:
Singletary fired after 49ers eliminated (San Francisco Chronicle)
Gwen Knapp: York looking for a GM—several months late (Chronicle)
San Francisco 49ers fire Mike Singletary as head coach (San Jose Mercury News)
Tim Kawakami: It's time for Jed York to make tough decisions (Mercury News)
Mike Sando: Singletary out: reflections and projections (ESPN)
Singletary is sacked following crucial loss (Sacramento Bee)
49ers Fire Mike Singletary (Stampede Blue blog)
Mike Singletary Fired: Jim Harbaugh, Jon Gruden, Etc, Please Pick Up the White Courtesy Phone(Niners Nation)
And Sports Illustrated's Peter King offers this valedictory observation:
Mike Singletary gets put out of his misery, and someone named Jim Tomsula gets his one moment of glory Sunday at Candlestick. Imagine how bad the 49ers are, and how disgraced the Yorks, the owners, feel. And they open up their USA Today this morning to see Tomsula will coach his one game as a seven-point favorite Sunday against Arizona. Singletary had to go. He's a wonderful man, but he'd become a caricature of himself, yo-yoing quarterbacks and his one final sideline argument, with Troy Smith in St. Louis Sunday, seemed fitting. Last day, last reaming.