VISION.

Whether or not this will translate to a trip the playoffs, I don’t know. But one thing in particular I do respect Singletary for completely is his accountability. Towards the end of Nolan’s tenure, as things REALLY went down the crapper, he seemed to pass the buck as much as he possibly could. I suspect that Sing will man up more and accept the shortcomings as his own fault, and not look to say, “Hey, I don’t control the offense. That’s Jimmy Raye’s fault!”

the fact he wants winners so let’s draft Pat White and let him help us win

Personally, I don’t really swallow the rhetoric as a reason to be excited. It’s just chatter. White noise to keep people excited without having to be specific in any way.

Singletary wants “winners.” This is one of my least favorite things of the whole offseason. What the hell does this even mean? It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean a single meaningful thing. But it gets eaten up by a lot of fans, and they get excited about it, and they spout it back out because they’re PUMPED! Because it’s the kind of wordplay that is designed to get you pumped without burdening you with the problem of substance.

So let’s go over it. He wants winners, right? I wonder, how is that different from what anybody else wants? Every single team in the league wants players who want to win and who are capable of winning. Al Davis wants winners. Bill Belicheck wants winners. Sean Payton wants winners. Herm Edwards wanted winners. Mike Nolan wanted winners. Big deal. That’s not really the point. By saying, “I want winners,” what you’re saying is a not so subtle code for, “I want to win.”

Okay…

When I say that this doesn’t really have any substance, I mean it this way. You don’t build a winning team by having a group of winners. When you win, the result is that you have winners. Winners come from winning. That’s why, “I want winners” just means “I want to win” in no uncertain terms. But saying, “I want to win” is just saying, “I’m going to talk about the thing that happens at the end, and hopefully you don’t ask me about the stuff that leads to it.”

So, how is Singletary going to go about getting his winners, about getting his wins? Well, we have an answer to that:

By playing physical football on offense and defense.

Okay… make no mistake, this is exactly as meaningless as the last thing.

What does any team want to do? To play physically. Al Davis wants his teams to be physical. Bill Belicheck wants his teams to be physical. Sean Payton wants his teams to be physical. Herm Edwards wanted his teams to be physical. Mike Nolan wanted his teams to be physical. It’s nothing special. It’s nothing new. It’s completely universal. Football is, by nature, a suprememly physical sport. You have to play physically to play football. That’s a prerequisite. Saying it makes people happy, but it doesn’t have any meaning.

Meaning comes from the stuff that does not apply as a general rule. Meaning comes from the stuff that applies to how Mike Singletary is going to utilize this specific team to take advantage of its strengths and to build on its weaknesses.

And strengths and weaknesses come in the forms of players and schemes. Really, the only thing of meaning that Singletary has said all offseason is that he wants to utilize Frank Gore in a central offensive role. Why does this have meaning? He’s saying “We have a strength that is specific to this team, that strength is Frank Gore, and here’s a little bit on how I’m going to maximize the use of the strength.” It’s not much, but it is meaningful. And it’s nice.

So when you hear something, anything come out in a press conference, or a soundbite, or an interview, or any other quote, ask these questions:

1) Can I say this same thing about any other team without losing any meaning?
2) If I said yes to question one, doesn’t that effectively strip what I just heard of any useful meaning?
3) If I said no to question one, is the thing being talked about – in my estimation – going to make a positive or a negative difference and, more importantly, how.

This gets you to think about the substance involved and then to develop your own opinion about it.

So, to summarize, no, I’m not encouraged at all by any of the things that Singletary has said either last season or this offseason because so much of it lacks any substantive meaning at all. It’s great rhetoric. But I’m not interested in rhetoric. I’m interested in substance and the ongoing result of that substance.

I’m barely even encouraged by the one meaningful thing that I did say he has said, because it’s so basic that it could mean any one of 100 other things. We’re going to use Frank Gore more. Okay, so… does that mean bringing in a lead blocker? Does that mean going between the tackles or outside. Does that mean using delays? Does that mean using more playaction? How is the scheme going to complement his abilities? We still don’t know. But we do know that it’s going to try. Which is cause for a little bit of sideways happiness.

BUT, that is not to say that I am not encouraged by Singletary. I’m simply not encouraged by his speeches, by his interviews, by his words. Because his words have been, as I’ve said, meaningless.

What I am encouraged by, and pretty legitimately excited about, have been his actions as coach. If I throw out everything that Mike Singletary has ever said, he still 1) benched JTO, 2) wrested power from Martz, 3) began involving Gore more, 4) started Rachal, 5) gave a serious amount of playing time to Lawson, Jason Hill, and Morgan, 6) displayed a much improved sense of game management from his first game to his last (including time outs and challenges), and 7) presided over what appeared to be a visible improvement in defensive scheming.

He had DONE some very good things. He has SAID a lot of crap. But he’s DONE things to be very enthusiastic about, and that’s why I’m excited to see what he can do.

Winners are what Tedi Bruschi is just giving you an example……….One of the worst athletic players at his position, that just helped his team win by making plays. It’s the difference between taking off a play and not taking off any P Willis is a winner F Gore is a winner Shaun Hill is a winner any player that is relentless in their efforts every down is a winner. if you’re not gonna bust your butt and think simultaneously youre not performing like a winner

Singletary, as a coach, is a lot of talk. Motivational speeches and powerful halftime pep-talks are all good and well, but alone, they don’t make a mediocre squad into a playoff team. You need strategy, scheme and execution to win football games – not just will and drive.

However, the players in the locker room are really buying into what Singletary is selling. This will be the first time since Mariucci’s early years that we’ve had a team that was really behind the head coach. If Jimmy Raye comes up with an offense that takes advantage of the players we have on that side of the ball, I think it’s entirely possible that Singletary’s talk can become the the thing that holds the team together and sends it over the top.

It doesn’t hurt that we play in a weak division, either.

I think the Vision plan has some traction.