Article:These Aren't The SF 49ers Most Of Us Remember

A few days have passed since the game, but I still cannot make out what happened, and what was going through the minds of the men in charge. I am talking about the 49ers’ horrendous loss on Monday night to the division leading (yeah, sounds weird to me too) Cardinals.

A win was in the grasp for the once proud franchise, but they were left in defeat, in a way that is still hard for 49er nation to digest.

Now, don’t feel too bad for 49er nation, because the handful of us are coping with the loss, and are getting on with our lives. You see, we have grown accustomed to ineptitude. We have grown accustomed to failure. We have grown accustomed to, the York’s.

With all due respect to the worst owners in sports, you simply cannot hold a candle next to John York. In only a few short years, he took the royalty of the sporting world and turned them into a joke. If you tell me you read about the 49ers in the newspaper, and you do not live in San Francisco, you are a liar.

Every team in football has a two-minute drill, or at least we thought so. Every team is supposed to know what to do with the game on the line, or at least we thought so. So where did it all go wrong for the 49ers?

You can look at Mike Singletary. He is inexperienced and has a defensive mindset. He is also the head coach and is the man with the final say.

You can look at Shaun Hill. He is an inexperienced quarterback, but he is the field general, and on the field, is the leader of this team. However, I think I am going to look in the direction of the man calling the plays, Mr. Mike Martz.

“Hill makes the catch, eludes one tackler, and is down at the one with 43 seconds to go. They are going to spike the ball, or are they? What are they doing? Spike the damn ball!” Sound familiar to you?

While Martz was calling for a spike, he was also calling for a new personnel package to go into the game. I believe that goes against common sense, but that just may be me. Needless to say, the game ended on two rushed plays instead of three with plenty of time. Not how you should perform in those situations.

For all of the children that watched this game, it is too bad the announcers didn’t say “eye muffs” during crunch time.

Good football teams find ways to win, and bad teams find ways to lose. But there are some positives to take from this…Whatever you want to call that thing Monday.

The boys played hard for Samurai Mike, and the offense was efficient (except when connecting on shovel passes to the opponents, but even that had some flare). As we welcome St. Louis into town, I would expect a 49er team looking to rebound and show they can compete and that they do belong. And yes, with St. Louis, we do belong.

From Jordan, a contributing editor on Pro Football 101.