Every season ESPN.com runs approval ratings for coaches.  It allows for folks to express their approval or disapproval for a coach.  Most people had problems with Mike Nolan and we never ran an approval poll for him.  Once Mike Singletary took over we began to run weekly approval ratings.  Given the fresh start to the season, I think we'll roll this feature out again for the entire season.  At this point it might seem like a pointless exercise.  After all, the honeymoon has not ended for Mike Singletary, and a opening week road win certainly can't hurt him.

Nonetheless, if things were to go south at some point, it'd be nice to see the progression of the approval rating week to week.  For those wondering, Mike Singletary finished the 2008 season with a 99.9% approval rating.  215 people voted and all but 1 voted yes.  I'm guessing the no vote was by somebody who who wanted to stand out.

Win or lose, each week I'll use this post to take a look at Singletary's performance in the game and general thoughts on him.  If you think I'm off on a certain point, feel free to offer your own take on the issue.

What I thought was the most intriguing moment of week 1 was the timeout he called late in the third quarter when the Cardinals were driving.  The Cardinals had picked up two quick passing first downs, followed by a Beanie Wells six yard rush.  Singletary proceeded to called timeout and brought the defense too him for some kind of speech.  When asked after the game, Shawntae Spencer indicated he couldn't use the language Singletary used.  So clearly it was a fire them up kind of speech, as opposed to any sort of strategy speech.  Not shocking to consider, but worth clarifying.

I'm somewhat surprised there hasn't been more discussion about this moment given the somewhat unorthodox nature of it.  I'm guessing that might be due in part to many folks not getting Fox coverage of the game.  The Cardinals did get one more first down (on a Haralson offsides), but had to settle for a field goal.  How many folks think that timeout helped settle down the troops?

The way I look at Singletary, I do think the rah-rah motivational stuff has some value coming from him.  Nolan couldn't pull that off.  Singletary is a Hall of Famer who's been there and done that better than any of the current 49ers.  I'm not going to say that will win games for this team, but I can see how it would at least work better coming from Samurai Mike than coming from someone without his playing pedigree.