Being Tuesday and all, I decided to open up a link dump diary.  As usual, my reason for opening it is a Matt Maiocco blog entry (SURPRISE!), but feel free to discuss that and post other links to whatever other news topics you want.

In Matt Maiocco's most recent blog entry, he decided to tackle the "common" Q&A questions he tends to get via e-mail and comments (as there was no practice today for him to cover).  The most interesting one to me was not the question about what Matt thought was ailing the team (offense, big surprise there), but actually WHY Matt thinks that is the case:

A: It took me a long time to come to this conclusion, but I think the problem is the offensive coordinator. I'm not speaking specifically about Jim Hostler, though. Bear with me. I think Hostler is a good, hard-working coach. But what he lacked as an offensive coordinator was experience. So much of being an offensive coordinator is having a commanding presence and a strong reputation. I think subconsciously the players might have doubted Hostler - Frank Gore said as much more than a month ago. Even if Hostler were doing things exactly like Norv Turner, the players weren't going to be carrying out their assignments with the same conviction because Hostler was a first-time coordinator. Another problem was having two inexperienced coaches, Hostler and Frank Cignetti, in charge of a young QB and the offense. It was a good move by Nolan to bring in Ted Tollner last week. If he were to do it over again, I'll bet Nolan would've tried really hard to hire Tollner to his staff (as O.C. or QBs coach) when Turner left in February.

I think he poses a very interesting (and VERY valid) reason for the offensive struggles.  Trust is a huge thing between players and their coaches.  This is especially true if the players are being asked to run plays called by someone that has NEVER called plays in a real NFL game before.  I'm not saying this is the end-all reason, but it is a very good reason, and one that is really overlooked.  Hostler hasn't really helped his cause to that either, though.

In another question, Matt also says that he'd be "surprised" if the 49ers brought in a new GM.  That would be right in line with what HTS and I have been saying, in that Nolan and McCloughan together have actually done really well in bringing players in.  It's the getting the most out of the offensive players that has been the problem.  With a full offseason of potential suitors and interviews, I have little doubt that Nolan WILL find a better offensive coordinator, and one that players will learn to trust before training camp begins.

Again, feel free to use this diary to drop off links to any interesting articles and such that you don't want to start a whole new diary for. You could also use this as a launching point for any thoughts you may have leading into this week's game that you don't want to start a whole new diary for.