We return for Week 11 of the Approval Ratings, and I can't imagine they'll turn out all that pretty. We're going to roll out ratings for Coach Singletary, OC Jimmy Raye and DC Greg Manusky over the course of the week, and given the team's performance on Sunday, I'm curious to see how far the ratings fall. Last week, Mike Singletary's rating rose from 81% to 88%% following the victory over Chicago. If ESPN.com is any sign, it's going to be a precipitous fall. This week has seen Coach Singletary's rating there drop from 84% to 66%.
We rolled out Singletary's Monday press conference transcript yesterday and it left some folks back on board, and other folks annoyed with the same old comments. At this point, I again can imagine that he probably made a decent amount of money when he was a motivational speaker. He even recognized when he was nearing that territory during his lunch money comments.
The issue I'm curious about in relation to Singletary relates to the offense. When I post the Jimmy Raye Approval Rating we'll discuss the issues of the idea of a spread offense, or shotgun spread, or whatever, in greater depth. For now though, I'm curious about how people view the offense at this point in terms of the overall philosophy in place. We've heard over and over that Coach Singletary wants a smash mouth offense that will punch teams in the mouth. They'll establish a strong running game, which would then open up the passing game. Of course, the offense has been most successful when trailing and forced to open up the passing game beyond this "smash-mouth style."
So I guess the question out of all of this is how much is Mike Singletary driving the offensive philosophy? People jump all over Jimmy Raye for some of his calls, but is this something he's being kind of pushed into by Singletary? We can't tell for sure what Singletary's influence is on Jimmy Raye because we're not insiders. It's possible Mike Singletary told Jimmy Raye upon hiring him that he's in charge, and Singletary then stepped out of the picture for the most part. It's also possible he's continued pushing this smash mouth philosophy, and Raye is not allowed to open it up as much. I'd imagine it's somewhere in the middle, but I'm curious what people think.