I am not a player, coach, or owner. I certainly am not a reporter for the local newspapers, sport newscast stations. Me, I am just a ride and die Forty-niner fan, have been since the late sixties. Being from Milwaukee, I was also a Packer Fan. At least until I moved to Oakland in 1978 and had to choose as the Packers became a hot rivalry. That is when I sent the word out to my people back home. Don’t send me no more Packer crap. I am through with them. They got a big kick out of that. You should have heard some of the conversations I had with my late mother who was a die hard Bart Starr-Bret Farve Packer Football fan.
Anyway, I also happen to be a football fan. That means I not only have a favorite local team; it means I watch pro-football on Thursdays, Sundays, and Monday nights. My wife will tell you at this time of year, she becomes a football widow. Now if the game gets out of hand, I will find something else to occupy my time. I may write a blog or surf the net. This only applies to games other than those being played by the Forty-niners.
I follow the draft, trades, any and all pro football during the offseason and during the season. Before the weekends games, I forecast the winners. Most weeks I do well, sometimes I stink up the joint. At the end of the season, normally I’ve outperformed most local and national prognosticators’. My system is simple, I go with who I think can beat their opponent for that particular game. I don’t gamble on any team or play in a fantasy league. First of all, I have no money to lose and playing some fantasy game based on points scored takes away from the real football teams playing the games. I am not opposed to those who like it. I always say, do your thing.
This season my team has won one game and got blown out the last two games. Last Sunday, a team, many has picked to go to the Super Bowl scored almost any way a score can be achieved in a football game. The final score was 47-7. The only good thing you could say about that game was the Niners show up and played in the game.
Now, having said that a lot of the aforementioned local beat reporters, TV analysts and the like says my team is a complete disaster. I’m not going to go over all the departures from last season to the present, but it was a major turnover. A couple of these so-called reporters can’t and don’t try to hide their disgust for the Forty-niner owner, general manager and the coach they picked to replace the dismissed Jim Harbaugh.
One particular reporter for the Contra Costa Times wrote the following headline after the Niner beatdown by the Arizona Cardinals. Kaepernick’s woes are bad news, but the real blame falls on York (owner), Baalke (general manager). This foul reporter has insisted since the firing of Harbaugh and hiring of coach Tomsula from the Niner’s staff, that he knows how to run a football team. In fact, I think he wrote this article around the same time. He just kept it on his computer waiting for the Niners to fall on their face. Well, he and another couple of his colleagues will have their days this year. Pretty soon they are going to run out of things to say. They are not fans or accurate in their assessment of the entire situation. For me, and a lot of fans the Harbaugh magic had worn thin on the players and almost every Niner opponent.
No matter what anyone tells you, a team has to have a balanced offense to win in the playoffs and the Super Bowl. Hopefully, you run with power with blocking from a decent offensive line. Your Quarterback passes enough to keep the defense honest, and your Defense keep the opponents from scoring more points than your team. It’s been that way since the first Super Bowl. Harbaugh style was to run, run, run pass and run some more. Run a few trick plays to disguise the run.Teams were ignoring the pass and loading up on the line of scrimmage to stop the run. He relied on a very good defense, most of which was here when he got hired, to get the ball back to the offense. So they could run, run…well, you get the picture. The problem was so did the opposition. He and his assistants were being outcoached on a regular basis.The results during the 2014 season, an eight wins and eight-loss season. The next season promised to be more of the same. Besides getting on everybody in the Niner organizations nerves and dissing the owner, Harbaugh was a decent coach and nice guy. One that the entire organization could no longer stand work with or trust. He had to go, so the owner fired him. Oh, they blundered the firing but was right in removing him.
Afterward, the turnover started for various reasons. My guess, ninety percent of players leaving would have left no matter who was the coach of the team. Just check their reasons and you may or may not agree with me. Those players that would speak validated Dion Sanders implication during the 2014 season that Harbaugh had lost the team. In my mind, they should have won the Super Bowl in which they played the Baltimore Ravens. The coaching staff didn’t have the team ready to play at the start of the game. And when they decided to play after the half, they blew a couple of chances to score based on Harbaugh calling the plays. Believe it or not, one call that should have been made was to run the ball at the goal line. They had four downs in which to do it.
As a fan, I am over it. Harbaugh is gone, and the team looks better for it. The problem is that it hasn’t translated into the field. But then they have only played three games. I will say, based upon their ferocious schedule, new cornerbacks, and suspect offensive line, not to think of the progression of Collin Kapernick, I picked them to finish with seven wins and nine losses this season. I also expect them to have a good offseason this year by adding players and drafting others. Enough so that I expect them to contend for a divisional title next season.
That means I am on board with the general manager, coach and assistant coaches. The owner can do what he wants to do, something local reporters tend to forget. He didn’t check with them before moving the team to Santa Clara. I wonder do they or and their editors think their rhetoric sell newspapers. Sort of like the Enquire-Star reporting syndrome that we see in political reporting directed at people who don’t know how to care for their fellow man. No morals or scruples just the notion to tear down people or organizations for their amusement.
I will also say, I’ve always been opposed to NFL millionaire owners asking communities to help them pay for a stadium. They are business people who own a for-profit entity. Why should cities who are laying off police officers, teachers, firefighters, closing fire stations, and schools help a millionaire business person to finance the building of any kind of sports venue? As much as I love sports, I love society even more. Oakland may lose the Raiders because of that very idea. Why not a Raider fan you ask, could not stand Al Davis and his feud with Tagliabue, the commissioner at the time. Bottom line, hang in there Forty-niners players and fans. We will be back in the hunt next year. Look for small improvement in the Niners play from week to week. Just have patience and don’t read those Everything Niner’s stink columns’.
Peace, and make it a day in which Jesus Christ would be proud of you,
Codis Hampton II
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