SpearSrai

2 or 3 big names on that list - a lot of role players who we can replace with a solid draft. We'll resign several of them to good deals, but nothing scary there.

True, the west is awful. But I listed earlier all of the big wins the 49ers had this year, including Monday night against the steelers, the saints in the playoffs when they were the hottest team in the league, the bengals, eagles and lions, and the giants not once but nearly twice. Lots of great wins for an Alex smith-led team. He didn't build the defense in a year, but getting Alex smith to play well is arguably an even bigger accomplishment.

I don't know about that, but the other harbaugh would have been able to score more than 13 points if his offense had our firepower.

The Colts going 2-14 this year was an outlier, and proves how poorly the Colts were prepared for his injury. A 5-game-drop off is one thing, like the Patriots with Cassel, but 10 games is ridiculous. The Colts didn't even have a backup who they were willing to start - proven by their signing Kerry Collins preseason. Replace Ray Lewis with a leader comparable to Collins or Painter and the drop off would be staggering. Fortunately, we also happen to have another hall of fame leader to take over. Manning did not inspire leadership on the rest of that offense for when he went down; Ray always inspires his backups and fellow defenders to become the next man up (Hartwell, Scott, Suggs...) The Colts just didn't have enough leadership at any level, from player to coach to GM to owner to deal with the loss of Manning. That's an indictment of their organization more than anything.

In that super bowl, the giants had scored 10 points going into the final minute, and it took the luckiest catch of all time (helmet catch) for them to even have a chance to score 17, which STILL isn't a lot. I don't get your point here. Belichick in no way lost that game, whereas Harbaugh rushed Cundiff onto the field to kick a huge field goal when he had a timeout to use. And boldin should have had 200 yds and 3 td with a 5'9 receiver covering him, not one big catch

Don't count.

Zero penalties for us in that game

I was referring more to the past decade. The Pats are pretty thin on D this year, but they also somehow got away with putting receivers at cornerback against us and we still didn't exploit it.

In the case of a guy like Lewis, Singletary, and maybe even Patrick Willis? Absolutely. Why do you think we've been a top defense almost every year since 1999?

Because we never had a quarterback who was even mediocre. If Billick had Flacco we would have been better. But Boller was his horse, and he fell off.

Exactly what I've been saying about Ray Lewis on defense. How hard is it to coordinate a Ray Lewis-led defense? Exact same argument you guys are using against Caldwell.

Worry about roleplayers like Cary Williams after Grubbs is paid. Webb and Smith should be the starters next year at CB.

Webb and Grubbs.

Wow - that's the most we've got out of Dawan Landry in 5 years. Sidenote... I hear we're looking at bringing in his brother to replace Ed Reed. Thoughts? (Yes I made this up. A guy can dream.)

In Cam Cameron's defense, he did have the foresight to pass over Brady Quinn in the draft... in favor of the player who ended up keeping the 49ers out of the Super Bowl this year (Ted Ginn Jr.) What, you're saying that's a stretch? Well that's because Cam Cameron is awful... what do you want from me?

I agree with this post, especially the part about Harbaugh being limited by his coordinators. Basically what I've been saying. I like the idea that a head coach could actually improve a given aspect of the team, the way Belichick does with the defense and gameplanning. The ONE thing I will say positive about Harbaugh is that he seems to be able to, at least sometimes, get us to play disciplined football, meaning few penalties. (I may be basing this too much on the zero-penalty Houston game, but it does seem like the penalty-laden Billick days have improved.) And I would expound even more upon this "disciplined football" point if we didn't lose four games this season to non-winning teams. Otherwise I would wax poetic on his ability to prepare us for "the big game". Instead, I'm not really sure what to make of all of that.

Who are we getting comp. picks for? I know the Patriots have taken Nate Solder and Logan Mankins in the first in the past several years, and Matt Light was a 2nd rounder I think at one point. Without actually looking it up... the Pats do draft linemen.

Billick wasted a ton of talent too. Neither are great head coaches and both benefited from coaching Ray Lewis. We can agree to disagree about how great Harbaugh is. He's average, and I'd feel better about the next five years with Jim.

Was joke.

Did BOLLER ever have a 152.1 rating in the Pro Bowl? (or any game, at any level, ever in his entire life?) I rest my case....

What was so great about Pagano? I understand that Greg Mattison wasn't great, but he was the only non-aggressive, unsuccessful defensive coordinator that we've had since Marvin Lewis. The fact of the matter is, I could run our defense and it would be successful, as long as Ray Lewis is still on the field. (and I'm only half-joking.) Mattison < OR = Pees = Pagano = Ryan = Nolan < Lewis Since we're doing math.

That team Harbaugh took over was NOT a losing team...they had just been 13-3 in 2006, holding Peyton Manning's Super Bowl team to ZERO touchdowns in the second round of the playoffs. The 5-11 season that came in 2007 was an anomaly based on us basically losing ALL of our cornerbacks to injury, and having McNair go down, Boller being horrible, and Troy Smith ending up as a starter by the end of the year. Even the Steelers have had injury-plagued seasons over the last decade, but the foundation of the team remains intact. I predicted BEFORE the 2008 season that we would be one of the best teams in the NFL, with all of our starters back, even with TROY SMITH (or Flacco) at quarterback. That had NOTHING to do with Harbaugh and EVERYTHING to do with how stacked we still were despite the previous year. Mike Smith also had a rookie QB go to the playoffs that year. Unfortunately for him, his team wasn't stacked like ours. Since then, so have Mark Sanchez and Andy Dalton. And even those rookie QB's didn't have as stacked of rosters as we did when the rookie took over. Flacco had Mason, Heap, and Rice as security blankets, and one of the top defenses. There was no way that team wasn't making the playoffs.

Rex doesn't have two of the greatest leaders in the history of football in his locker room. How can this be overlooked.

Jason Garrett called the timeout right before the kick, which is icing, and that was a 49 yarder. Calling a timeout when your kicker is rushing on a 32 yarder is much different. 49 yarders are a lot harder to make anyway - 32 should be auto except when there is a rush and confusion.

Tl;dr, but is "because Lee Evans learned to catch in Buffalo" on the list?