This dude has done some impressive stuff with Stanford and now the 49ers. He must be doing something right.

This 49ers team is for all purposes the same team that Singletary had last year. Impressive.

well singletary was probably good for some losses, maybe 2 or 3 by himself. Jim might be good for 2 or something so that can explain the 6 win season last year and 13 wins. we also got better through subtraction of some players and rogers I think was a big haul for the teams. letting spikes go so bowman could play as well was pretty big. he definitely made some great moves. i think he also gave alex a bunch of confidence in the off-season which helped. defensive game plans are better than last year and so are the offensive ones. will see what happens next year with a much tougher schedule including trips to Lambeau, NE and the Saints I believe.

Your 1st round pick has been "ok" this year too.

All aboard the GOAT train

Only if he could make Tebow win the super bowl.

he's not a starter and only played half the snaps on defense. he's been sick when he's on the field but i don't think he's singlehandedly responsible for the niners turnaround.

True. Honestly, he gets to play with GOAT Justin Smith in front of him that makes his life a million times easier. Then again Aldon has made a ton of plays, but it was a hell of a pick and it was something we surely missed the last couple of seasons. Hopefully Aldon can learn coverage a little and play more snaps and hopefully he gets better and his play isn't a total function of Justin's play (considering that Justin is 32 I think, DE/DL is tough position and Justin hasn't missed a game in his career).

NFC West might have the best collection of head coaches in the league w/the addition of Jeff Fisher.

I wish he'd stop teaching his guys how to tackle, I'm sad that it's unlikely that Nicks or Cruz is going to bounce off a safety this week and score a 70 yard touchdown. Maybe two guys can run into other or something instead

Heh.

I don't trust Pete and I don't trust Whissy that much. His success was a function of Kurt Warner's success and Warner was amazing at times in Zona. I do like the Fisher hirer but obviously not as a 9er fan.

Niners just lucky that PSU didn't pick him for their plum head coaching vacancy

has anyone mentioned that he's probably the best looking HC too

wrong thread

I think you might be surprised how long of a list you could compile of HC's everyone thought was great after 1 year. Nick Saban, Eric Mangini, Rex Ryan, Mike Smith to name a few just since this forum's existence; there are of course a hundred others.

there is no doubt things could tank. they did withstand basically little WR play this year other than Crabtree (Braylon hurt and sucked most of the year, we were playing Swain in yesterdays game, Ginn got hurt, etc.). Withstood injuries to Gore. Withstood injuries to Willis pretty seemlessly. But our schedule gets significantly tougher next season. We could lose some key FAs. And we could have worse injuries. I think the key injuries for our team are Justin Smith, Alex Smith, Vernon (with Delanie out), Crabtree, Aldon. I think we can weather losses from Willis (since Bowman is good), Gore, and many others. Year 2 will definitely determine how legit Harbaugh really is in SF. I don't think the years in Stanford told you that much. He was fortunate to land Luck and build a good staff and team but college to pro is normally not very seemless. His background and family I think give a better indication that this just isn't luck but of course will have to see.

those are definitely good points but unlike some of those teams I feel like the 49ers have some pretty obvious areas of improvement and should win 10-11 next year. I mean they're not like a top-top team in this league now but they never really looked outmatched (maybe outside that Ravens game)

He can probably get his DBs in front of the WR on a hail mary, as well.

saban's first year: 9-7 (missed playoffs)
mangini: 10-6 (lost in WC)
ryan: 9-7 (lost AFCC)
smith: 11-5 (lost in WC)

there were a couple of reasons for the Ravens failure.

1) short week on the road in hostile territory in a really hyped game against a great home team.

2) 2 big plays really went against the 9ers, the PI call which was a LOL joke and the chop block called against Gore that basically was a 14 point swing on those 2 plays.

3) Chilo Rachal having to play against the Ravens front. My god does that guy suck. When Snyder went down, our chances of winning went from maybe 20% to 0% right here. Rachal is a complete flop of a lineman.

Ravens are also a very good and very complete team that would give any one a tough game at home and on the road. I don't think we were as out of the game as the score indicated but obviously it wasn't that close. A couple of things really went there way and against us and it made it almost impossible to win.

9ers can definitely improve. Alex can improve. OL can improve. Deep secondary can improve. WRs can be upgraded. Obviously winning 13 next year is going to be really tough. But being in the playoffs would be great and hopefully will happen. NFC W wasn't nearly as bad as everyone thought it was and it getting better. Rams should be much better under Fisher than Spags.

9ers lost 3 games by 15 points this year. Obviously on teh good side of that going the other way as well. But 2 of those games they basically gave away to the Boys and the Cards and Skelton. But the variance train will probably roll the other way next year. Saints will be pissed. Packers will be good and the Pats are always good and some how we get them all on the road next year.

If only you were playing the Saints this week

And we shouldn't rush to anoint anyone after one season, but I don't think there's any doubt that Harbaugh is really, really good at coaching

don't get me wrong, your point is valid, but the niners went through years of crippling mediocrity despite having talent that far exceeded their win total. year in and year out with nolan and singletary they were projected as 10 win team capable of taking down the awful NFC west, pretty much from the year the cards went to the super bowl, and year after year they failed because their coaches didn't have the slightest ****ing clue what they were doing

harbaugh is a good coach. harbaugh may very well be a top 5/top 2/best coach in the NFL, but i think this season's more of an indictment on nolan/singletary than it is harbaugh = GOAT. the niners front 7 is arguably the greatest front 7 in nfl history. on the strength of that alone, the niners are a playoff team. if the niners got nhamdi in the offseason, they're probably frontrunners to win the super bowl right now.

where i think harbaugh = GOAT comes into play is with smith. the niners desperately needed a guy who understood offense and understood the QB position. he's turned smith into a decent QB, which is obviously less than expected 7 years removed from being the #1 pick, but considering how abhorrent and how frightened smith was on the field his entire career, that is a pretty ****ing huge leap. the guy ran 2 4th quarter comeback drives in the final 4 minutes of a playoff game. i never would have thought i'd see the day

nnamdi didn't do **** this year.

now if they got revis...you might be going somewhere. with that being said, Rogers was better than Nnamdi this season. Obviously no one expected that **** to happen.

Hmmm....I'd have to think about Goat front 7. There is probably better, maybe the Ravens SB team. I really like Willis, Bowman, Aldon, and Justin...the rest of the guys are good but not GOAT material IMO. But those 4 are straight up beasts.

Steelers have really had some good front 7s the last 10 years.

juan castillo tho