Singletary proving he's flexible

SANTA CLARA

Mike Singletary made a tactical error when he took over as 49ers coach. He stated his offensive philosophy.

It is praiseworthy for a coach — or anyone — to tell the truth, to lay it all out there. It’s just that the philosophy Singletary laid out was for the birds. Let me rephrase that. In addition to being for the birds, it was out of context. This is Northern California. This is the land of exceptional quarterbacks and great wide receivers and passes flying all over the place and fans gasping in appreciation of all that football beauty.

And there was Singletary droning on about running the ball and playing power football and hitting the opponent. It felt like we had gone back in time to some black-and-white movie starring Pat O’Brien, and it felt like we had gone to another place — to a slush-strewn Midwest in November or December when the trees are bare and people wear gloves and you can see their breath.

Singletary seemed like an anachronism and a relic and a coach who didn’t have the slightest idea what his players could do. He was talking power running with Frank Gore. Except for a few long runs, Gore kept getting knocked down at the line of scrimmage like a shrimp taking it in the chops from the school bully. And the quarterbacks were supposed to play ball-control offense, but the line couldn’t control and neither could the quarterbacks and there was very little ball and frankly very little control, either.

Now we enter the mind of Mike — more precisely we speculate what kind of mind Mike has. If he really were a single-minded maniac — a my-way-or-the-highway martinet — this season already would be over. If Mike were as he advertised himself, the Niners would be the Raiders.

It hasn’t worked out that way. We can speculate Mike pondered what he had seen and saw it wasn’t good. And then he got to thinking. He didn’t share all his thoughts with us, but we saw his thoughts in action. We saw the philosophy change and we saw Mike become flexible.

He subbed out one quarterback for another. He took a chance with QB No. 2, Alex Smith, because if Smith washes out, Singletary doesn’t look so good. He welcomed Michael Crabtree back to the team after that whopper hold-out. A real hardnosed coach — hardheaded? — would have shoved Crabtree into the doghouse — “All your teammates were here from the beginning and worked hard blah blah blah.” Singletary was above all that nonsense.

He said he would run one kind of offense, but changed to the exact opposite. He’s using the spread and it’s bombs away. And he made the change because some players asked him to. Which means he put aside his ego.

He sat down Isaac Bruce — big change. I could go on. Singletary is, in fact, one of the most flexible coaches we’ve seen in San Francisco. He is a sponge constantly learning. He had a lot to learn and he knew it, and he’s curious and smart.

His Monday news conferences are command performances, writers asking anything that comes to mind and Singletary thinking deeply about everything and answering with the utmost seriousness. You want an example? Here’s an example.

Before the Jacksonville game, Smith gave Singletary his opinions about the offense. Singletary told Smith to state his opinions to offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye. I asked why Singletary couldn’t relay that information himself.

Singletary: “I have always believed all of my life that if someone has something to say, be man enough to convey it. Don’t come to me and tell me, ‘Coach, I don’t like this; I don’t like that. Jimmy is doing this; he is doing that.’ That’s not going to fly. All that is going to do is get me upset because that concerns me that you are not man enough do that. The most important thing to me is we have 53 men, not a bunch of boys, not a bunch of guys sitting in there waiting for something to happen. I went to Alex, he didn’t really come to me. I went to him because I know what he has been through. To hear those ideas and to hear those thoughts, that is great. Now we’ll tell Jimmy. I didn’t want him to tell anyone else, just go tell Jimmy because that relationship is critical. I don’t want to go to Jimmy and tell Jimmy, pull a ‘I’m the head coach, you’re the coordinator; just do what I tell you.’ That’s too easy; that’s easy to do. I want Alex to do the difficult thing, to go in there and take a risk and say, ‘This is what I like. Can we do this?’ This is where the team gets better rather than me pulling a power card. That’s no good in the long run.”

Singletary revealed so much in that little speech. He can listen to suggestions. He can change. He can put ego aside. He taught a young player about being a stand-up guy. He taught courage.

When Singletary was done, I spoke with Smith in the locker room, asked about Singletary’s flexibility. On a scale of zero to 100, if the poles were total rigidity and total flexibility, where would Singletary fit?

“I guess I found this with Coach,” Smith said, “and he’d probably admit it — it depends on when you talk to him. If we’re in the heat of the battle, he’s rigid. He’s going to make decisions and go by them. The thing I’ve found with Coach Singletary is he’s always evaluating, I think, always evaluating himself and things he can do better, things that can help us win. Often after a game or in the middle of a game, you see him, he’s an emotional guy and passionate and that shines through. But you talk to him the next day when he’s thought about things, he’s very flexible, very open to new things, anything he can do to help us win games. I’ve really found that. Which I think is a good thing. I think he’s constantly looking at that. What can we do differently to win games? What can he do differently to win a game?

All of which means we’re seeing Singletary change before us — grow in front of our eyes. Does all this flexibility and growth translate into his becoming a top-tier coach? Well, that we’ll find out.

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.