Niners could have had Shanahan

For weeks, I wrote the 49ers should not hire Mike Singletary right away. I wrote he’s a good coach, as far as we know, but there might be someone better. I wrote the 49ers should take their time, catch their breath and survey the coaching landscape around the league. I wrote that Singletary would wait while the Niners went through the usual interview process, of course including him.

In the old days, the Niners would have taken their time and done due diligence. In the old days, the 49ers had pride. They didn’t latch onto the first pretty good coaching candidate who came along and hold on for dear life like a drowning swimmer putting a death grip on the dock.

In the old days, the Niners were run by Eddie D. and Bill Walsh. In the current period, the period of decline, lesser men run the 49ers. On Tuesday, we learned just how inept and unprepared they truly are. This is all so depressing.

On Tuesday, the Denver Broncos fired Mike Shanahan, which means Shanahan became available as a head coach candidate — as a candidate for the 49ers.

Is Shanahan a better head coach than Singletary?

Get serious.

Shanahan is miles ahead of Singletary, an unknown, a mere beginner with nine big-league games under his belt as head coach. Shanahan won two Super Bowls. That’s an impressive credential and it merits at least one interview with the Niner brain trust such as it is, except the 49ers can’t interview Shanahan because they rushed into a contract with Singletary for four years and $10 million. This is Exhibit A of how weak 49er ownership continues to be.

If Shanahan, a coaching superstar, were 49er coach — what a terrific exhilarating thought — this downtrodden team would have instant standing around the league. It would be similar to Bill Parcells lending his presence to the Dolphins. It would serve notice on the entire NFL that the Niners are on the rise, and you know it.

But it’s more than that. Shanahan has Niner roots as opposed to Singletary who has Bears roots. Bears roots are find and dandy for Chicago, but they have nothing to do with what goes on around here. Singletary fired Mike Martz as offensive coordinator because Martz is a pass-first guy. Singletary is a run-first coach. That’s the Bears’ tradition — bone-crushing grunt football. But it is not our tradition, and we have a better tradition than the Bears.

Shanahan is part of our tradition. He is a disciple of the West Coast offense and he would reconnect the team and fans to the valuable and unique 49er past. Think about that. Think how delightful the West Coast offense would look on a brisk fall afternoon in Candlestick.

Before Shanahan took over as 49er offensive coordinator in 1992, he studied films of Walsh, not just of Walsh coaching. That would have been obvious and expected. Shanahan found out Walsh had filmed his installation sessions, those classic moments he explained the week’s offense to Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and Roger Craig and the others. Shanahan sat alone in a darkened room for hours and watched Walsh install, tried to get into Walsh’s mind, tried to be Walsh. In 1994, his last season in San Francisco, the 49ers won the Super Bowl.

Do you think it might have been worthwhile for Jed York to take time out of his schedule to chat with Shanahan? Well, it’s too late for that.

There’s something else. The West Coast offense is uniquely suited to the 49ers’ current personnel, to a quarterback who is accurate but lacks a strong arm. (If that makes you think of Montana, it’s supposed to.) The West Coast offense is all about short passes and deception and outsmarting the other guy. The West Coast offense comes naturally to us, but we won’t have it for years to come. We’ll have Chicago Singletary, a good man but not the best man, someone who doesn’t even have an offensive coordinator and may not know how to find one.

Shanahan also is a great talent evaluator — superior to 49ers general manager Scot McCloughan. He would have been another wise football voice in the Niner organization, an organization lacking in wise football voices. He could have worked with McCloughan and brought him along. Now, of course, he can’t work with McCloughan because the 49ers foolishly rushed into hiring Singletary.

Shanahan would be the perfect 49er coach, perfect for bringing this team back to glory. What an utterly embarrassing time to be a 49er fan.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.