So I would expect him to know a little more about the team than a normal ESPN analyst, but I’m still a little perplexed by his comments. Just because you treat your employees well it doesn’t necessarily translate to a successful team. If any of these guys had really been paying attention to the 49ers, they would have noticed a pattern of terrible clock management, poor use of timeouts/challenges, and a lack of in-game adjustments. It reminds me of baseball, where the media sticks up for coaches who are nice guys from the “good ’ol boys” club.

I try to ignore most of what the announcers on any channel say. One of the few announcer I give any credibilty to is Steve Young, not only because of the obvious, but because to me he comes across as a good guy who isn’t just going to say something because Hall of Fame Coach Mike Ditka said it. I don’t know who I dislike more, the announcers on the pre/post – game shows or the ones that acctually call the games.

Isn’t Berman a Niners fan? I don’t understand why he is disgusted? Was he not disgusted with losing like the rest of us? It’s not like Nolan was tarred and feathered and sent away, he was by all accounts pretty respectully let go. I think dragging him along after the leaked rumors would have been cruel. I don’t see why it is disgusting.

Also, wouldn’t you think Ditka would be more excited to see his boy Singletary getting a shot at being a HC?

Nolan is a defensive guy and the defense, despite mass upgrades in personnel, still sucks. that has to fall right onto his shoulders. But he is also horrible with in-game management and his teams, so often, do not look like they’re ready to play. they play hard, but not smart, and the result is a sloppy game. that responsibility falls on the coaches, in my book.

That being said, I don’t really get why these ESPN jackoffs think is so “disgusting” to fire a guy in the middle of the season. It isn’t unheard of. A lot of coaches go into their jobs with grand plans and their picks and coaching decisions don’t always pan out, even if due to injuries, etc, it isn’t really their fault. But the buck stops with the coach, and he must be responsible in the end. Even SB winning coaches get canned. Ask Brian Billick.

Of course, I don’t disagree with the comments about the owners. the Yorks need to go. If the buck stops with Nolan for his team’s performance, then it really stops with the Yorks for the organization’s performance. They hired the guy.

Also, I don’t know why everyone is so down on Martz. He has a complicated, yet proven, system that he is trying to implement on a new team mostly with guys who aren’t familiar with its concepts and lingo. JTO is the QB b/c he’s the only guy with a clue who can play QB, but he isn’t the future. He’s a stopgap. So, yes, due to the system and personnel on offense, there’s been a lot of mistakes. That doesn’t mean that in the long run, it won’t work out. From what I’ve seen, this year’s offense is a million times better than last year when we led the league in 3 and outs. Given time, I’m positive that the offense will produce.

I understand that you want to have good people around and treat them well, but at a certain point you have to look at performance. Nolan was not performing. It was time. Let it go, Chris.

Everyone knows ESPN is so full of shit now, it’s hard to remember just where they went so far of the track. For me, the moment they jumped the shark came in 2006. Before the season, they ranked very team at each skill position. The Niners were #32 in terms of RB’s, even though they were #17 in rushing the year before (on 2-14 team that was constantly behind), had a clear RB of the future (Frank Gore) emerge late in the year, averaging 5 yards a carry. Sean Salisbury specifically stated, “The 49ers have no true #1 back.”

When the year started, Gore did what was obvious he would from the previous year — dominate. So what does ESPN do? They run a segment on Frank Gore featuring Salisbury, who called him “the most underrated RB in the NFL” and chided the media for not giving him “his due respect”. Hypocrisy at its finest.

I think the quality across the board is horrific. These guys seem to only do about 5 minutes of homework before the games and don’t have a clue when they’re sounding like morons in front of a national audience. The networks should do some quality control on the speech dynamics too. To me, I have to get past the the voices of Kermit the Aikman, Dan Dierdork, Gumball ‘persnicity’ Gumbell, Squeeze-box Visser, Chris Vermin, Big head Marino and the monsters, etc. etc. to even get to the actual content {take a breath} which makes it even worse!! ‘Attention- Can we have clean up on isle’s NBC, CBS, FOX and ESPN, please?’

such a boss. One of the few guys these days on espn(him and steve young) that actually follow bay area sports and like the niners.

Guys…most of these idiots all hate the 9ers because they all used to get killed by the 9ers when they were playing/coaching. it’s no surprise. look at all of the guys on tv. ditka, carter, collinsworth, the many offensive linemen that have gone to the booth. they all used to get there asses handed to them by our 9ers so the last couple of years they have had ammo to use because the 9ers aren’t any good. funny thing is, the most fair of all of the commentators thats done 9er games is Aikman. and shockingly he used to beat the 9ers. as for berman, retarded. the media is going to pick apart anything any team does so who cares.

with all of their quips and smart-ass comments all the time i have to watch espn on mute. NFL network is obviously only for football but it’s still better than espn.