Change may not always be a good thing, but when your team is 0-3 and you’re the one staring down the barrel of a gun, the decision to make change may come a little easier.
49ers offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye was fired by Mike Singletary early Monday.
“I came back here and basically spent the night here looking at film,” Singletary said. “And just kind of looked at an overall view of where we are, and looking at where we need to go, and felt that I needed to make the change.”
Although Singletary continued to show support even after the 31-10 loss to Kansas City, it’s hard to ignore the numbers.
The 49ers have scored a lowly 38 points this season—their lowest total for the first three games in 33 years. In Raye’s 19 games as offensive coordinator, the 49ers have failed to surpass 300 total yards 12 of the 19 times. And the running team that the 49ers have entitled themselves to be has only run for 78 yards per game, half of what the league leading rushing teams have accounted for so far.
Singletary chose Raye in 2009 and hired him because of the hard-nose run game they both had imagined. Confidence is a good thing but you can be too confident.
The 49ers let the league know what kind of team they would be and they advertised that they would run the ball down team’s throats. But you’ve got two problems. One, you can’t run the ball consistently if the ball can’t be moved through the air, and two, you drafted (and started) two rookie lineman to shape your future offensive line. Another change may be in order if Singletary doesn’t fix the motionless ways of the 49ers offense.
Some new ideas may be needed if Singletary wants to be a part of the change and not the reason for change.
Quarterbacks coach, Mike Johnson, will be stepping in as offensive coordinator. Johnson, 43, has been an assistant for 10-years in the NFL, coaching in Atlanta, Baltimore, San Diego and now the 49ers. Even though he may not be as experienced as Raye (or as old, however you want to put it) the players respect him and look forward to playing under him.
“I think Mike will help,” backup quarterback David Carr said. “He’s young. He’s got a lot of energy. He’s got some great ideas. I think just him being our quarterbacks coach, I think that we’ve got a pretty close relationship as far as him with the quarterbacks. So I think he knows how we feel about our offense and about how our personnel can be used. And he’s got some great ideas himself. So I think it’s only a positive.”
Football Fan Spot 