I think the title of this post probably lays out the point of this thread pretty clearly. I haven't yet given up all hope for the season because I really just enjoy the torture hope brings. However, it's safe to say that even I can admit the 49ers 2010 season is circling the drain. We already knew that no 0-5 team has ever made the playoffs. Dropping a must-win to the Carolina Panthers pushed the team even further away from its goal as they now sit at 1-6 hoping for a miracle.
While there are always a question of whether a team will quit on its coach, I do still think the players have enough pride to keep playing hard, even if the results are not quite what they would like. Where it gets interesting is the fan support for "tanking." The 49ers will not tank on purpose as at this point they're doing a pretty good job of tanking without trying.
What I'm curious about is what fans want out of the rest of this season. I know some people will stop watching the team and might tune out football entirely. Others will acknowledge the team but will take a step back so as to avoid the heart-wrenching losses that have become almost expected this season. And of course others will still live and die week in and week out with this team.
I think it's safe to say I fall in to the latter group, although with a bit of an asterisk. Given my work here at Niners Nation, I'll be watching this team no matter how bad things get. At this point the losses still hurt, but I find myself getting over them a little quicker. This might be due to how mind-numbing this season has become. And it's possible I'll move in to a cross of the first and second group if things do manage to get any worse.
However, I do still enjoy seeing the team win games. I'm not sure how I feel about the various QBs and other high pick options and I want to see this team win games. Of course, if you're not going to be a playoff team, what's the point of another .500 season? If you can't be good, are you better off being epically bad? Given this particular franchise's recent history and records, would you prefer the team go 3-13 rather than see them rally back for another non-playoff 7-9?
I'm honestly not sure how I feel at this point. The team has a lot of holes and high draft picks could potentially fill some of those holes. But I also hate losing. I'm not ready to fire Singletary at this point, but if that becomes necessary, do we really want the team battling to a middling record and buying him another year? Again, I don't really know what I want right now because this team remains so confounding and baffling. This team is a paradox wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma.
And because of that I really don't know what I want from this team the rest of the way. In fact, that's why I didn't include a poll because I really didn't know what options to include in such a poll.