Mike Singletary 12/7 Press Conference Transcript

Mike Singletary had his weekly press conference earlier today and, as promised, here is the transcript from said press conference.  Not a whole lot of shocking information, but certainly always interesting to hear his thoughts on a wide range of topics.

One issue that will continue to stick out until next training camp is who will be the starting QB heading into training camp.  Singletary basically says he won't anoint Smith the guy yet.  Last year was a competition between Shaun Hill and Alex Smith.  Earlier today I mentioned how it was likely that Smith would be the guy heading into 2010.  I'll stand by that statement for the foreseeable future, but I can understand the hesitance in naming the guy for 2010 when there are still 4 games to go.  Singletary said:

"What we have seen so far is so far, so good. But I don't want to jump the gun. I don't want to say, ‘We found him and he is going to be the next great...' No, I don't want all of that. I just want to give him his due. I think he is working his tail off. I think the coaches are doing a heck of a job with him. I think he is using the tools that are around him. I think he is making really good decisions. Hopefully, that will just continue."

I know we've got folks clamoring for Nate Davis playing time, but in terms of starting time, they have to stick with Smith.  The good news about the Arizona game is that it's now, before Arizona has clinched a playoff spot, so they'll clearly be battling.  The next week they get a Philly team in an absolute dogfight for a playoff spot and further positioning.  Neither team will be taking it easy on the 49ers as if it's Week 16 with nothing to gain.  And then even the last two games against Detroit and St. Louis have some value.  Can Alex Smith (and the offense in general) go in to a game with a bad team and take care of business.  When the 49ers pounded the Rams earlier this year it was primarily because of the defense.  We need to see the offense kick it up a gear against bad teams.

Other than that, there is plenty of discussion of the play-calling, the reverse, and of course the refs.

Head Coach Mike Singletary
Press Conference - December 7, 2009
San Francisco 49ers

On whether using RB Frank Gore so little gave the Seahawks an advantage:

"I think there were several advantages in this game for [Seattle coach] Jim Mora, but I won't even address those."

On how much the Seahawks defense dictated the 49ers plan:

"I think nothing out of the ordinary than any other team. If a team sends a particular personnel out on the field, offense or defense, you adjust. That's where you get your matchups. There was absolutely nothing that they were doing - the only problem, what they were doing on the offensive side of the ball is not giving us time. There is a certain amount of time that you - if they send someone out on the field, then, OK, you send them out on the field, you huddle and you go ahead and go from there. But, they weren't giving us time to get our personnel on the field. That's something that's an unfair advantage. You can't do that. We talked to the refs about it. But anyways, those are kind of some of the things that were happening in the game."

On whether the first timeout in the game was because of that:

"A little bit. It's just one of those things where some referees do a better job than others of handling that and making sure that you go over to the sideline and you tell them, ‘Hey, you have to allow them enough time to make sure that they have the appropriate personnel in the game.' Otherwise, everybody could do that and you're always mismatched, and you really can't do that in a game."

On the balance in the first half:

"I think I told you before, and I really do believe this, I want whatever we're winning with. I think if we have a certain package in the game and it's a better thought process to pass the ball rather than run the ball, then that's what we need to do. If it ends in us winning the game, that's what I want. I don't want to try and outsmart ourselves. I don't want to be looking at something where, ‘Let's see now. How many runs have we had? How many passes have we had?' We need to look at what's working. If they have a certain personnel out there on the field and it's better for us to attack it because of the matchups, then we need to throw the ball and take advantage of the matchups. Obviously, if we have our regular people in the game and they come out in nickel situation, we're going to run the ball every doggone down. But I just think you have to be smart about what are the matchups, and I think that dictated some of what we were doing, how many people were in the box? That sort of thing, and I think some plays were running plays at the beginning of the game, but because of what they had on the field, we audibled to a pass because it didn't make sense to run the play that we had. So, that's what was happening on some of those."

On whether it seems weird to fans that at the beginning of the year the team was running against eight-man fronts and now a seven-man front dictates the pass:

"Well, early in the season, we had a totally different situation. You go back and forth, run-pass, whatever. The bottom line is, did you win the game? Did you lose the game? And, I think that's what we need to be talking about. As far as how many times you ran the ball, how many times you threw the ball, you can play cat and mouse with that all year. Just understand that going into the game a balance is what you always want to look for, but at the same time, if your quarterback is given certain parameters - if they are in this, if we're in a two-backs, two-wide outs, one-tight end situation and they come out and they have a situation where it's more nickel, you know what? We want to run the ball because we want to take the shots every chance we get. But, I think they were more focused on the run in this game because of what happened last time. So, I think that made them more vulnerable against the pass. Whether Jim Mora said that not running the ball - I think running the ball maybe would have helped him a little bit more than, I thought, than passing the ball."

On whether QB Alex Smith can become the leader of the team:

"What we have seen so far is so far, so good. But I don't want to jump the gun. I don't want to say, ‘We found him and he is going to be the next great...' No, I don't want all of that. I just want to give him his due. I think he is working his tail off. I think the coaches are doing a heck of a job with him. I think he is using the tools that are around him. I think he is making really good decisions. Hopefully, that will just continue."

On where yesterday's game ranks in Smith's career:

"Obviously, he did a really good job. I thought he made some good changes. I thought he really made some good audibles. I thought he got the ball, for the most part, where he wanted to put it. What we did in last week's practice, some of the reads were exactly what he got in the game and he took advantage of those things. I think any time that you see that, it creates a very positive result."

On whether the team disappointed him:

"No, I won't say this team has disappointed me at all. Quite the opposite. To have the guys that we have, and to do what we do, and to unfortunately be in a situation where six games come down to you having a chance to win at the end and your guys are still fighting, I think that is a special group of guys. We just have to win. But, to say that these guys have disappointed me is far from the truth. Unfortunately, character does not show in numbers in the game. But I cannot tell you how proud I am of these guys. Do we have a lot of work to do? Trust me, you have eyes, we have a lot of work to do. Do we have a lot of great players on this team? We have some players that are really developing and will soon be great players once they learn how to focus, once they learn how capture the vision and understand what it is, once they learn the little things. What they think are secrets are not secrets, it is just a matter of confidence and consistency. No, I am far from being disappointed in this team."

On whether he is frustrated the team hasn't already figured the little things out:

"Frustrated is a great word, for lack of maybe other words. Frustration is a tremendous word to fill in the blank. You go out and you play a game like yesterday and you end up on the losing side, the only thing you tell your players is that we just have to stay together. We have to continue moving forward. The ground work from this, somehow, someway this will be a positive for us going forward, but right now it doesn't feel that way."

On whether there is still a unity of purpose in the locker room:

"There will always be a unity of purpose in our locker room."

On how much he second guesses his or his coaches' decisions in the game:

"I wouldn't say second guessing of myself is something I would do at all, in terms of what I know second guessing to mean. I don't second guess anything about myself. I don't second guess some of the decisions to go for it on fourth down. I don't second guess some of the challenging of the calls. I don't second guess any of those kinds of things. Some things happened yesterday, as far as the punt situation and miscommunication on that, that was just one of those things that happened. Frustrating, but it happened. Just miscommunication."

On what the miscommunication was:

"The miscommunication was - we worked on it in practice, therefore we are going to do it in the game and that was my fault for not articulating that. We might do it in the game, but we're not for sure going to do it in the game. That's my fault for not making that more plain."

On whether the call on the punt return was a reverse:

"Let me just put it this way. It was my fault. Whenever something like that happens it's my fault because the communication should have been better. Because we did it in practice that week, we were going to do it in the game and we did not hit on the same - we didn't touch on it the way we should have, to say we are definitely going to do that in the game."

On whether the weather or the way the game was going that in retrospect, he wouldn't have done the reverse:

"I think it's a situation in which you've got two players back there and the one player, [WR] Brandon Jones, is not really your normal guy to do that. So, maybe you don't want to have him doing that; just go ahead and let [WR] Arnaz [Battle] return punts. Let's just keep it simple going forward with that. We did practice it last week, so it showed up in the game."

On whether they went on the field knowing that they were going to execute the reverse:

"Just to clarify, it was bad communication and it was on my behalf. Nothing more than that. It's starts with me, that's me."

On whether he will be sending any tape into the league on some of the questionable calls the referees made:

"Every week we send a letter to the league about different calls that are made or not made in a game. Just to say this week, there will be several paragraphs that will be going to the league."

On whether there is one call he is particularly upset about:

"There were many."

On the non-call on TE Delanie Walker and whether it was talked about on the flight home:

"Let me say this before I go too far down this road, obviously there were bad calls made and I think in every game there are bad calls made. Yesterday, for me, there were just a few more than I had witnessed maybe since I've been in the league and I just want to make sure that our players, coaching staff, our fans, everybody involved with the 49ers, everybody that cares about the 49ers, I want them to understand that this is not about the referees. They didn't fumble the ball. They didn't throw interceptions. They didn't make bad plays, we did. So I don't want to put this on the referees. I certainly feel that some of those calls were questionable, but if we had done what we were supposed to do, we overcome that and we win the football game."

On why CB Keith Smith was inserted during the game:

"We just had a few guys getting a little tight in the legs and they had to put some receivers on the field to try and get some match ups. A few more receivers, four receivers and we just needed to match up. We just felt that he was a good match up and he really did a pretty decent job coming in and playing the limited amount of time that he did."

On who Keith Smith was substituting for in the secondary:

"Michael Lewis would come out."

On what happened on the team's last offensive drive:

"On our offensive drive, we just didn't make the plays it's as simple as that."

On whether or not he was okay with the calls:

"Once again, you look for better calls after the calls are made. If we make the plays, then we're not talking about the calls. I just wished they would've worked, but no I don't question the calls at all.'

On whether he feels comfortable with Jimmy Raye as his offensive coordinator:

"Absolutely, I think that Jimmy has adapted and adjusted. I think he's going 180, 360 anything that I've asked him to do he's been more than willing to do and I think that he's done a fine job. I think that Alex has adjusted to him well. I think that he and Alex are on the same page along with [QB coach] Mike Johnson. All of the guys are on the same page and I think that it looked that way yesterday. Alex is feeling as comfortably as he feels and I think that everybody's on the same page moving forward."

On how much of a role does quarterbacks coach Mike Johnson have in the team's game planning and is he being groomed by Jimmy Raye for an offensive coordinator position:

"I think that Mike Johnson and Jimmy Raye just continue to develop their relationship. There's a synergy there, a flow there and they spend a lot of time talking, a lot of time in conversation and Alex Smith is also part of some of that conversation in terms of basically asking him the questions as, ‘Are you comfortable with this? Do you like this? What about this?' And Alex is able to have some feedback. So, I think that it's been a work in progress, but I think that it's working very well."

On whether it is part of his long term plan to move Mike Johnson in as an offensive coordinator:

"You know what, I want to talk about the short term plan right now and stay focused on that before I talk about long term plans."

On the slim chances of making the playoffs:

"I think that by the time the last game rolls around they'll play their math game as if this one loses or this - I could care less about that. I think the only thing that we need to be focused on is that Arizona is coming up. I mean, hopefully we can gather the things that we need to gather amongst ourselves. Yesterday was a tough loss. I am not thinking that we might not be able to rally together and play a good game but, I want to win this game Monday night. I want people to see that the 49ers are a team that's out here in the west that really isn't the same team. Something is happening out here and hopefully we can show that on Monday."

On whether it's more frustrating to see the team not play smart or not play well:

"Yes, you could say that. Yes, when the opportunities are there for us to make plays and you don't make those plays, it's frustrating. It's frustrating for the players. It's frustrating for the coaches because you know that making a play makes a difference. But I think that the bottom line is that when you lose games, no matter how you lose them, it's frustrating."