Communication a growing problem for Niners

The growing tension between San Francisco 49ers players and the coaching staff bubbled to the surface in the team’s surprisingly lopsided loss at Seattle on Sunday. While coach Mike Singletary took quick action to call a team meeting Sunday night to get the coaches and players back nfl jersey
on the same page, the reality is that Singletary is navigating some very choppy waters.
It’s the kind of problem that could spoil not only a season expected to yield a division title, but also Singletary’s career as a head coach.
On Sunday, the 49ers wasted three timeouts and were called for a delay-of-game penalty on three first-half possessions when they got inside the Seattle 10-yard line. By the end of those three possessions, the 49ers had only two field goals (though a touchdown was negated during one series following a booth review). Ultimately, that’s the definition of ineffective football, allowing Seattle to gain momentum on the way to a 31-6 victory.
After the game, quarterback Alex Smith pointed the finger at the coaching staff, saying the plays weren’t getting in fast enough. Smith was right and Singletary tried to cover that fact by claiming there were problems with the team’s headsets.
According to multiple sources familiar with the circumstances, the real problem has been more than a year in the making and became more significant following changes the 49ers made within the coaching staff this offseason.
In Singletary’s first full season last year, offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye, one of the more respected veteran coaches in the league, was calling plays from the coach’s box upstairs. Raye would call plays down to offensive assistant Jason Michael, who would then send the play into the quarterback. That system worked effectively even at times when Raye struggled to find exactly the right play or say it exactly the right way.
“It seems like Jimmy calls plays from memory a lot of Pittsburgh Steelers jersey
the time and not exactly the way it’s written down,” said one of the aforementioned sources, adding that the plays often get garbled. “He knows the plays and he knows the right thing to call, but he’s fumbling through his papers and it’s like, ‘Hey, we need to get a play called.’ ”
Michael, who worked closely with Raye, was good at filling the gaps in communication. However, one of the problems created by the Raye-Michael relationship was that it began to alienate quarterback coach Mike Johnson(notes), whose involvement in building the game plan had diminished. In addition, some players began to resent Raye’s tendency to blame them if things went wrong.
As a result, several players went to Singletary this offseason to complain about Raye and the overall situation. Singletary’s solution was to change the mechanics of how the plays were sent in. He replaced Michael, who is still on staff, with Johnson in the play-calling process. On Sunday, that became a problem because Johnson couldn’t decipher what Raye was saying during tense moments when the Seattle crowd was making noise. Singletary was seen several times yelling at Johnson on the sideline when plays didn’t get relayed in a timely fashion.
The fear among those who know the situation is that this could put Raye, Johnson and Singletary at odds with each other. Worse, it could undermine the already tepid trust the players have in the coaching staff.
Singletary and Raye declined a request to talk to Yahoo! Sports directly about the situation, but the head coach addressed Sunday’s miscommunication during Monday’s media session: “We will take a hard look at it and we will have an answer for it. We will figure it out in the next few days exactly how we are going to do that and exactly how this is going to get better.
“Whether Jimmy comes on the field or however it is, we’re going to figure it out and nip it in the bud.”
Though Singletary said he was listening in on the headsets, the sources claim he isn’t an X’s and O’s guy and doesn’t know what a correct play call would be compared to an incorrect call. Surprisingly, that’s not completely unusual in the coaching profession, but it Dallas Cowboys jersey
creates a problem for Singletary on who to blame for the problem and how to fix the issue.
It also furthers the credibility gap for the coaching staff with the players.
The fortunate part for the 49ers is that they return home this week where the home crowd will make it easier to communicate. The unfortunate part is they play New Orleans, which will have had three extra days to prepare for the game coming off the Thursday opener.