Cohn: Niners need to find an offense

SAN FRANCISCO

This is what Mike Singletary told reporters after the 49ers beat the Rams. “We knew we were playing a dangerous football team. They've got some talent on that team.”

He actually said that with a straight face. After he uttered that preposterous remark the appropriate response would have been for everyone in the room to fall down laughing.

The Rams are dangerous? They score an average of six points a game, worst in the league. They give up an average of 27 points, which means they are as dangerous as a newborn baby, which means the Niner victory is not definitive in any way, although it's always good to get a win.

Now that I've stopped laughing I want to start again. I give the 49ers all credit for being 3-1 at the quarter mark of the season, for going 3-1 for the first time since the 2002-2003 season, for registering their first shutout since the 2001-2002 season and for defeating every team in the NFC West.

And I want to go on record with this: The 49ers will win their division unless weirdness prevails. Face it, somebody has to win that division.

“That is our first goal, it's to win the division,” Singletary said. “That's not our only goal. When you look at the NFC West a lot of people think this is weak division. I don't think that is the case. As we go forward we want to be one of the best teams in the NFL.”

A reasonable person could dispute Singletary's statement that the NFC West isn't weak. It's weak all right. Still, it is a recognized division and if you don't believe me you can look it up in the newspaper. The team that wins the NFC West makes the playoffs as per league rules. The Niners ought to win it and Singletary deserves a big hooray for making that goal legitimate.

But his offense stinks. This is the offense that, once upon a time, was run by Joe Montana, Steve Young and Jeff Garcia, and had Roger Craig and Jerry Rice. Now, the 49er offense consists of runs into the line and a million short passes — on Sunday the offense scored only two touchdowns, sufficient against the bums from St. Louis, but not so sufficient against a real team.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to Singletary's displeasure with his low-octane offense: “It's a good sign we can generate points from somewhere else. Once our offense gets set, we're really going to make some strides.”

How will we know when his offense finally gets set?

“It's just one of those things you'll know,” Singletary said. “I won't be talking about what we could have done. I won't be talking about once we get there. I'll be talking about something different.”

Fair enough but right now he's talking about the offense.

“We're going to have to run the ball early on,” he conceded. “We're just going to continue to open it up as Shaun Hill can open it up and feels confident to do that. The aim is to be half-and-half and be able to come out and pass the ball and be able to run the ball. Right now until everybody gets on the same page we've got to run more than we have to pass.”

At one point, he got blunt. “We just aren't executing on offense,” he said.

They sure aren't, although you could make a case those basic, simple uninteresting plays coordinator Jimmy Raye calls don't lend themselves to a functioning offense are, in fact, part of the problem. I mean you can only watch Glen Coffee bust toward the line of scrimmage so many times and then fall down before you are overcome with a feeling of despair and a desire to question the meaning of life. For what it's worth, Coffee ran 24 times and averaged a substandard 3.1 yards.

By the way, I completely disagree with Singletary's idea to limit Hill's throws. I believe Hill should pass more than Singletary is permitting. But it doesn't matter. The Niners will continue to run and bore people silly, and if they don't get points from elsewhere, they will struggle, as they did in the first half.

All of this means the 49ers are so lucky to be in the same division as those other frightful teams, who shall remain nameless as profanity is not allowed in a family newspaper.

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