The San Francisco 49ers have a new head coach in Mike Singletary. Yippee!

The San Francisco 49ers are looking for a new offensive coordinator. Again. For the eighth time in as many years. Booooooo!

Singletary apparently wants to move the 49ers from being a powerfully diverse and interesting team that has lived and died by the forward pass into a rushing-based team built around Frank Gore and ball possession. As a result, he terminated Martz, one of the most creative and large-yardage-chunk driven offensive guys in the NFL. So whoever the new QB is -- and my guess is we won't know that until the opening game of the 2009 season -- he'll be learning a new plan in addition to trying to master his position.

This musical chairs at the OC spot is the largest single reason the Niners suck. They drafted a strong, powerful, confident and eminently teachable quarterback named Alex Smith and then proceeded to destroy his career by forcing him to learn a new offensive playbook every year. It seems likely now that Smith will not be a Niner next year, which is probably good for him and bad for the team. Shaun Hill stepped in the second half of the just-finished season and did a credible job but he's not a playoff-capable NFL signal caller.

Conventional wisdom says rushing teams get to the playoffs more than passing teams. I'm not so sure. This year, only half of the top 10 passing teams in the league made it to the playoffs, but only one more team in the top 10 passing made it. Seems to me you have to look at other stats for an explanation.

Singletary's offensive game plan may be sound in terms of the W-L record, but it begs a really important question: Will 49ers fans want to watch smash-mouth football? Is it better to be boring winners or exciting losers? The West Coast Offense isn't always successful. But neither is a boring running game.

I don't generally comment on the Raiders. I lost interest in them years ago primarily because Al Davis is such a nasty shmuck that I didn't feel like it would be much fun to try to watch "his" team stumble over him week in and week out.

But this week, Ray Ratto of SF Gate has a good piece on the Silver-and-Black's recently terminated head coach Lane Kiffin and his apparent new job as head coach at the University of Tennessee. As Ratto, who is one of the most knowledgeable sportswriters west of the Mississippi, says, the job coaching the Volunteers is unbelievably more demanding that trying to coach the Raiders even with Davis in the mix.

The Southesstern Conference is perennially one of the top two or three conferences in college football and Tennessee fans can be really ugly if their beloved Vols don't win consistently. Kiffin appears to me to have bitten off far more than he can chew. If he lasts two seasons I'll be surprised.

There's a rumor floating around that Condoleeza Rice, a bright woman who went from Provost of Stanford University to yes-woman and apologist for the Bush Regime in an inexplicable journey into ignorance, wants to become president of the San Francisco 49ers.

The NFL Network's Adam Schefter first reported the story, which the Niners have denied, and several other media outlets picked it up and ran with it.

I have just one word of advice for the Niners: No. We have had enough duplicity, lack of accountability, and incompetence as 49ers fans over the past nine years that the York family has owned the franchise. What we don't need is a front office headed by someone who has spent the last eight years studying such disgusting tactics at the feet of the master. And I'm talking about Dick Cheney here.

The NFL has a few rules changes in store for the looming season.

The two I find most interesting are:

• No More Force-Outs. The rule used to be that if a receiver caught a pass while he was in the air and landed out of bounds because of the intervention of a defender forcing him out, the officials could award a completed pass at the point where the receiver went out of bounds. The official had to conclude the receiver would have landed in-bounds if not for the intervention of the defensive player. That rule is gone. You land in bounds or the pass is incomplete.
  
• No More Incidental Face Mask. A few years ago the NFL introduced the notion of an "incidental face mask" grab and slapped it with a five-yard penalty. That penalty is gone, along with a renewed emphasis on catching and penalizing deliberate face mask grabs that twist or pull the player's head and neck.
  

I'm not pleased by either of these changes but it's the first one that has me really wondering about the NFL's wisdom. In removing the force-out rule, the league said its intent was to give equal footing to both the receiver and the pass defender. But I belief this rule change gives the defense a huge advantage. And I'm a fan who prefers offensive to defensive football. Some of the more exciting acrobatic catches of recent seasons have been made at the sidelines where the receiver made a heroic attempt to snare a high toss and -- and this is the key point for me -- would have landed with both feet inbounds if the defender hadn't hit him in the midst of the catch. Those types of catches will now go for naught. Which in turn will result in fewer receivers being willing to risk themselves for such a reception knowing that it's likely to go down as an incompletion regardless of the receiver's effort.

I'd have been a bit mollified if the league had also passed a long-overdue rule requiring the receiver to come down with one foot inbounds rather than both. College ball has used that rule for decades and I can't see that it's diminished the quality or competitiveness of the game at all.

The incidental face mask rule is a bit troubling but not so much so as the force-out rule change. I can see the idea of not wanting to put the officials in a position to know the grabber's intent or mental state when making contact with the face mask. But overall, the danger to the player whose mask is grabbed should be sufficient to offset that concern.

It feels to me like the league's rules committee just feels like it has to tweak something every year to justify its existence.

In the days leading up to yesterday's Super Bowl XLII upset win by the streaking New York Giants over the previously unbeaten New England Patriots, I had email or phone conversations with eight friends. As it happens, four were Giants faithful and four were Pats fans.

Three of the four Giants' supporters were absolutely, unshakably convinced their men would emerge victorious on Sunday. If they had doubts or reservations, they certainly didn't reveal them even when I occasionally chided them for being overly optimistic. The one exception was, as she describes herself, a "typical New York Jewish mother to whom pessimism is the default state." She said, "I wish I could believe in the Giants, but who can stop the Patriots?"

To a man, all four of the Patriots' fans said the same thing. "I don't know. The Pats have been coming close to losing a lot lately and they just seem to fold so easily. I *think* they can win this one. They *should* win this one. But I'm not sure."

Clearly this is neither a scientific study nor a statistically significant sample. But if those attitudes represent the viewpoints of a substantial percentage of the fans of those two teams and if, as I believe, the Universal Law of Attraction (not as depicted in the over-simplified blockbuster movie, "The Secret" but in more ancient metaphysical teachings) holds true, then the outcome of the game was not a surprise. It was inevitable.

Anyway, I thought I'd give you something a little different to think about as you either lick your wounds or savor your hangover.

So the York Family, which stumbled into ownership of the 49ers when Eddie DeBartolo got caught gambling, decided to stand pat on its head coach, retaining an abysmal mistake named Mike Nolan for at least one more season. He'll give up his GM duties to a guy he hired to be in charge of player personnel, so his former employee is his new boss. Great thinking, Yorkies!

Offensive Coordinator Jim Hostler gets the axe as he should and there will undoubtedly be other juggling. But it's all tweaking on a team that is 12-36 over the past three ugly, horrible, very bad, no good years.

Prediction. The Niners will not reach .500 next season. Or the season after that. Because the Niners' owners are indecisive wimps who know less about football than they know about management, which apparently isn't much.

Bummer.

In today's San Jose Mercury News, sports columnist Ann Killion suggested that the 49ers ownership needs to move quickly and decisively to fix the problems revealed by this year's horrible performance. She recommended that they start with a clean slate, firing Head Coach Mike Nolan and replacing him with a "competent, experienced, innovative coach", something she doesn't seem to want to hold her breath over.

I'll go her one better and suggest a coach who is not only competent, experienced and innovative but who already has a good working relationship with the anchor of the team's future, QB Alex Smith. The Niners should do whatever it takes to bring back Norv Turner and give him the top job as Head Coach and GM. That won't be easy. Turner took the San Diego Chargers to a 10-5 record and a playoff berth this season, his first after leaving the Niners where he was the second of three offensive coordinators that Smith has had to work with. He has a four-year deal in San Diego. The weather's nicer in San Diego. But the Niners need Turner and they ought to pull out all the stops to get him.

Why Turner? Simple. Smith is the future of the Niners. He is, despite all appearances to the contrary, an intelligent and teachable kid with all the tools. Because he came to the NFL as a college sophomore, he's just now reaching the age when most rookies join the NFL and he's now seasoned by two lousy years capped by a nasty injury. The team has far too much money tied up in him to give up now. And the fact is, it would be tough for any QB, even an established veteran, to work under three different offensive coordinators and three different systems in three seasons. Turner was the most successful of those OCs, at least in terms of how he developed his young signal-caller.

Turner's not a great head coach. But he's offensive-minded, knows the Niners personnel, gets along well with Smith, and has a rep for dealing well with young talent. He might or might not get the Niners to a Super Bowl but he'd sure get them out of the toilet bowl where they've been living the past three years.

The Mike Nolan experiment has proven to be an unmitigated disaster. He has two huge failings which, when combined, make for a bad situation. First, his judgment about coaching staff is pathetic. Jim Hostler is almost certainly the worst offensive coordinator in the league. He's young and bright and he'll make a good OC one day, but the Niners don't have time for OJT in this key spot with a young QB. You'd have thought that Nolan wouldn't need a great OC since he's so offense minded himself but that is obviously not the case. Because his second big failing is that he makes the worst game-day and game-time decisions of any head coach I've seen in a lot of years. He doesn't have his head in the game. You can decide where else it might be firmly lodged.

So my recipe: keep Smith, elevate Shaun Hill to backup, move Trent Dilfer to QB coach and assistant OC, bring in Norv Turner as the new head coach and offensive coordinator. Keep Ted Tollner around to whisper in Turner's ear as Offensive Consultant. Greg Manusky is a solid Defensive Coordinator.

It will still take 2-3 years to develop Smith and surround him with the talent to get to the playoffs consistently, but at least those years will be interesting and competitive.

I haven't spent many electrons blogging about the 49ers and the NFL this season. In a radical departure from every past season I can recall, I've even missed watching a couple of their games. It's not that I'm a fair-weather fan. It's just that I'm not a hurricane-weather fan either. Frankly, watching the Niners this season has been more painful that at any time in memory and that includes several losing seasons pre-Bill Walsh. But at least those 49ers looked good, played interestingly and were not generally blown out by weaker teams.

Yesterday, the Niners showed a tiny glimpse of the glitter of bygone days. I actually enjoyed watching them for a change. First time this season, really. But the celebrations that broke out among players and fans are silly. Here's why:

1. The win came against one of the poorest teams in the game, the Cincinnati Bengals.
2. A new starting QB often wins games he shouldn't in no small measure because the opponent has no game film to study and so is less prepared for his playing style nuances.
3. It was the Bengals, whose defense is worse than that of the Niners, which is saying something.
4. The game was meaningless for both teams in a season when much better things were expected of both teams. The energy, focus and enthusiasm weren't there in large quantities and what there was tended to be more because of the glimpse of hope of having a new guy over center.
5. It was the Bengals, for Heaven's sake!
6. Coach Mike Nolan always does well in meaningless December games. It's the only month for which he has a winning record in three miserable seasons at the helm.
7. Did I mention it was the freaking Bengals?

Third-stringer Shaun Hill, who may well in fact be better than a third-stringer ought to be, is going to start the last two Niners' outings. That'll help him in the free agent market, which I trust he will test at least before deciding to re-sign with the Niners.

But what we've learned, I hope, is that it's time for the coaching staff to be terminated. I'm not sure any coach can with with the York family ownership but it's clear Nolan can't. Three years is enough. He couldn't hang on to an offensive coordinator for more than one year, a significant contributing factor in the dismal performance of ultra-high-priced QB disappointment Alex Smith. The guy he has in that job now is a bright up-and-comer but giving him a chance for on-the-job training in a real NFL setting was a stupid policy decision. Almost as stupid as some of the lame-brained play calling he continues to engage in. (What was that go-for-it on fourth and two instead of kicking an easy game-icing field goal, Coach?)

One other thing. I was ticked at the NFL Network for usurping some games to its own use, because such a small percentage of Americans can get the network even if they want to. Then I was really ticked when it turned out that my cable plan, which is the top-end bonanza of the offerings of Comcast here in Monterey, did not include the network after May when they decided to charge for subscriptions (a really freaking stupid idea). But I must admit one thing: the booth crew at last night's game was very strong and extremely enjoyable. That's particularly true for Deion Sanders, who is flashy but seriously, seriously knowledgeable about the game and its subtleties.

I now return you to your regular blog reading.

I cannot remember a single day in which every single NFL game was such a klinker as we have on tap tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I bet NFL TV ratings will plummet from their usual lofty Turkey Day heights.

While there's likely to be at least one upset, on paper these games are all between prohibitive favorites and duds.

Bet the NFL scheduler wishes he had a do-over.

As a long-time sportswriter and columnist, I've spent more time than the average fan watching teams at all levels of the major sports perform. I think that qualifies me to judge the overall quality of a team but even if you disagree with my qualifications, it's not too likely you'll disagree with my diagnosis of the week.

The 49ers suck. Big time. They may not win a game the rest of this long, horrendous, mistake-filled season. Their 31-10 loss to the New Orleans Saints today was not just ugly, it was a demonstration of ineptitude that recalled the futility of the old New York Mets in their early days.

This team is offensively offensive. It's not much better defensively. It says something when you look over the team and find that if the season ended today their MVP would be their punter, Andy Lee. Their punter, for Heaven's sake!

And yet on this offensive roster you have Ashley Lelie, Frank Gore, Arnaz Battle and Vernon Davis among others of nearly equal note. So what's the problem? There are two, really.

First and foremost, offensive coordinator Jim Hostler is just too green for the job. He needs to be demoted or fired. His game plans are unimaginative and his play-calling is abysmally conservative.

Second, and not far behind, it's time the Niners admit they made a mistake drafting Alex Smith and paying him all that money. The guy just doesn't have what it takes to be a top-tier NFL quarterback. And he's too darned fragile besides. Every time a team spends a first-round pick on a QB, they roll the dice. In this case, the Niners came up crap, which is what Smith has so far proven himself to be. I was willing to give him 3 years to mature and become at least a promising starter. But he goes backward more than forward. It's time for him to be evaluated for what he is: yet another busted first-round pick.

This ought to be Mike Nolan's last year as head coach unless he fires or demotes Hostler, brings in someone who knows how to plan and call an NFL game, and salvages at least a few wins out of this forgettable season.

The Niners this year are among the 10 worst football teams I've ever seen. Just butt ugly.