RealGM

Why were the 49ers such underachievers when he was there ?

Because he was a terrible coach.

Singletary was historically bad. The change to Harbaugh was probably the biggest upgrade in coaching the league has ever seen.

Singletary was a horrible Head Coach, but an outstanding mentor/motivator of men.

Harbaugh did inherit a team that was slowly beginning to show their true talent, though. I read somewhere that, IIRC, 15 of the 49ers current starters were on the team before Harbaugh became the Head coach.

Its all about the offensive side of the ball. And singletarys defensive mindset.

When things don't go right, it's not just the fault of one person. It's a team sport. Lots of factors, including Singletary and his inexperience as a head coach, can be blamed.

I have a relationship with a couple of Niners and they said Singletary was a total joke of a coach. As I've said before, one player told me it was like the Simpsons episode where Homer is going to climb Mt. Springfield and Rainier Wolfcastle is his trainer and his training consists of shouting non sequitir motivational slogans at him. It worked for about 4 weeks and then everyone tuned him out.

One of the biggest mistakes of that tenure was that they didn't bring in a respected veteran to fill the role of assistant head coach. It should have been someone that Singletary could turn to for advice. No one on his roster had really been a head coach before. I blame both Singletary and management for not seeing and filling that void.

JustAwesome wrote:When things don't go right, it's not just the fault of one person. It's a team sport. Lots of factors, including Singletary and his inexperience as a head coach, can be blamed.

While I agree that you can't put all the blame on one man, Singletary deserved a LOT of the blame for how bad the Niners were under his tenure. Basically 2/3rds of the same team (15 of 22 starters) that is in the Super Bowl right now went 5-11 under him.

Icness wrote:I have a relationship with a couple of Niners and they said Singletary was a total joke of a coach. As I've said before, one player told me it was like the Simpsons episode where Homer is going to climb Mt. Springfield and Rainier Wolfcastle is his trainer and his training consists of shouting non sequitir motivational slogans at him. It worked for about 4 weeks and then everyone tuned him out.

Haha love it.

I'm not denying that Singletary was a big part of the problem. Keep in mind, too, that the players have developed quite a bit from then to now (Super Bowl). There's a lot of variables involved in the outcome of every season.

Icness wrote:I have a relationship with a couple of Niners and they said Singletary was a total joke of a coach. As I've said before, one player told me it was like the Simpsons episode where Homer is going to climb Mt. Springfield and Rainier Wolfcastle is his trainer and his training consists of shouting non sequitir motivational slogans at him. It worked for about 4 weeks and then everyone tuned him out.

That sounds about right. Singletary is a pure rah rah rah type of coach and that simply does not work in the NFL. Professional athletes are grown ass men and they will tune that crap out.

Singletary should have never been elevated above position coach. His rise to Head Coach is the Peter Principle at work.

I hope Singletary doesn't give up that easily. At the very least, he should try for a coordinator job.

they weren't underachievers at all in my mind; they rightfully sucked. singletary was a militant disciplinarian, and the players themselves weren't having it. alex smith had not found himself yet, and at one point he looked like he might be a candidate for "biggest draft bust ever".

for what it's worth, i wouldn't be surprised if singletary was cheering very loudly for the ravens on sunday. he's probably happy about the loss.

Singletary used to work for the Ravens and has a relationship with Lewis.