Niners Nation DOOOOOOOM Index makes return: NFL free agency edition

When your trusty overlord, Fooch, was away on vacation recently, I was in charge of this here site and while I promise my loyal minions the revolution will come and Fooch and his supporters will be first against the wall when that day arrives, we've settled into a normal posting routine once again. But while I was in charge, I introduced the Niners Nation DOOOOOOM Index.

This was a way to make light of my natural pessimism in the wake of what has been an All-Pro offseason if there was a professional league for running the perception of a team into the ground. This was right after the Jim Harbaugh interview with Tim Kawakami and I decided we needed an open thread in which we could try and poke some fun at the fact that things were looking positively negative.

I decided to create a series of polls in which I gauged just how doomed the 49ers are at any given point throughout the offseason. Just over 1,000 people voted in the first poll and I gotta say, I was a little surprised at just how doomed people were feeling. That said, I feel like things have taken a turn for the positive in recent weeks [RATHER THAN EDIT THIS THING I WROTE YESTERDAY I'D RATHER LET IT STAY THERE JUST SO WE CAN ALL OBSERVE MY HUBRIS] (stick with me, pessimists, you'll get yours and be happily miserable soon enough).

But first, here's a look at the poll results from last time:

That's honestly probably pretty respectable given the things that were going on at the time. That interview had just come out, reports were coming out about the farce that was the Adam Gase interview. It was ... rough, and making the poll was even kind of therapeutic for me.

At this point, we're two days in to the NFL's free agency tampering period and there's been precious little bad news. This leads me to believe we're all quite a bit less doomed than we were at that point. Aldon Smith has restructured his deal, Jerome Simpson was signed and has some upside, Darnell Dockett was signed, Torrey Smith is a player the 49ers are interested in and the NFC West doesn't seem particularly active.

On the negative side, running back Frank Gore is as good as gone. Multiple reports have suggested Gore intends to sign with the Philadelphia Eagles when free agency gets underway. Philadelphia offered more money than the 49ers, simple as that. I think the 49ers likely made a good decision based on their plans going forward, but how crushing is it going to be to see Gore in an Eagles jersey? It's going to be tough. [HEY ANOTHER EDIT BUT MAYBE A POSITIVE ONE? IS GORE COMING BACK? I CAN'T NOT CAPS LOCK]

--- I'd just like to note that the following bold paragraph was made AFTER the Colin Kaepernick rumors from Sunday night but before all of the pleasant and non-worrying news of Monday morning concerning Patrick Willis and Justin Smith ---

OH AND JUST KIDDING ABOUT IT NOT BEING ALL BAD SOUND THE DOOOOOOOM ALARM AND ACTIVATE THE DOOOOOOOM SIGNAL BECAUSE COLIN KAEPERNICK MAY BE ON THE TRADE BLOCK OR SOMETHING AND TRENT BAALKE SAYS THINGS BUT IS A LYING LIAR WHO LIES AND WE'RE ALL ABOUT TO BE FLUSHED DOWN A GIANT RED AND GOLD TOILET, AND AT THE BOTTOM IS NOTHING BUT RAW SEWAGE AND CRAIG DAHL AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Again, I'd just like to leave all of this here so you can view true hubris. I want you all to see what it's like when I become slightly optimistic and then suffer the emotional whiplash of a night of crazy rumors. This morning when I woke up though, and read the stuff about Willis ... I laughed. At some point I reached the "I just want to watch the world burn" phase and maybe I just think Willis is such a great guy and I totally support what he's doing, but I'm not going to post another panicked doom-laden paragraph.

Don't get me wrong -- we're all doomed. Very doomed. So doomed is our existence that the atmosphere of this entire planet can be sucked away into space and only us 49ers fans would survive just because dealing with this offseason is actually worse than near-immediate death in the vacuum of space and that's just the way the universe works.

Consider this something of an open thread, discuss whatever but if you can keep it as DOOOOOOOMED as possible, that would be swell. Also, I love you all very much.

I'm not going to be around for most of tonight so I feel inclined to say, in disclaimer-type fashion, that while I am a pessimist, that much of what is said above is sarcasm. But if you needed this disclaimer to know then, then perhaps you are the doomed one, no? You'll also find that I did not joke about Bruce Miller or his arrest in this post. That was on purpose, and you should take note.