Will the 49ers go 0-5 ???
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Yet the Falcons still have Matt Ryan, Michael Turner, Roddy White and Tony Gonzalez.
Who's gonna QB Spy Vick? Can't be Willis because he's gotta cover Mccoy. I think the Eagles are even more scary with Vick than McNabb, and they did pretty well against the 9ers as well last season.
And at this point last season the 9ers were 2-1. This year 0-3. The schedule may seem easy at the end, yet the 9ers are the only winless team in the division, and the Seahawks and Rams even beat legit opponents yesterday.
Who's gonna QB Spy Vick? Can't be Willis because he's gotta cover Mccoy. I think the Eagles are even more scary with Vick than McNabb, and they did pretty well against the 9ers as well last season.
And at this point last season the 9ers were 2-1. This year 0-3. The schedule may seem easy at the end, yet the 9ers are the only winless team in the division, and the Seahawks and Rams even beat legit opponents yesterday.
Ray Ratto
CSNBayArea.com
So it’s settled, then. Jimmy Raye did this to the 49ers.
Pathetic. Also, predictable. And most of all, spectacularly impulsive.
This is Mike Singletary’s legacy -- believe with all his heart about something, and then swing wildly in an 180-degree pivot when his first instinct proves wrong. Tuesday morning, the offense ran well against New Orleans. Sunday evening, the offense was a shambles. Time to blow something up.
In short, Raye is a scapegoat, and nothing more. Perhaps a well-deserving scapegoat given the results, but a thoroughly scaped goat nonetheless.
He did what he was told as best he could, and to get canned a day after Singletary stood so stridently behind him and front of him means that his dismissal was, barring some explosion in a meeting room or plane that Comrade Maiocco doesn’t know about, simply a cover for a grander problem.
And we expected more of Singletary than that. Our bad, ultimately.
Raye was an easy target, because he wasn’t the prototypical young, spry, precise coach. Also, because what he did (at Singletary’s behest) didn’t work with this team.
So before you get your delicates in a knot, understand that Raye’s firing is not without justification on the merits.
That said, this was a problem Singletary should have recognized before training camp, based on a clear and unambiguous vision for the offense. Singletary does not have that, between the ball-control-turned-spread-turned-ball-control offensive scheme, the drafting, coddling and non-usage of Michael Crabtree, and the acquisition of Brian Westbrook which has gone so well that Westbrook may as well still be a Philadelphia Eagle.
In short, Singletary’s main lack as a coach is not his lack of technical expertise, or his over-reliance on motivational speechifying, but the fact that his offensive core beliefs aren‘t really core beliefs at all, but theories he believes in right up to the point in which he doesn’t believe in them any more.
The message? He doesn’t coach so much as thrash about for a solution that as often as not doesn’t come.
There is a school of thought that this was a decision forced upon him by his superiors, of which there are only three -- Jed York, Paraag Marathe and (I guess) Trent Baalke -- but the result is the same. He either caved to pressure, in which case he is not the all-powerful man the players and staff can rely upon, or he turned from Raye to Mike Johnson after a sleepless night of film study, in which case he is not the implacable rock upon which the players and staff can rely upon.
Singletary was the too-solid-for-words foundation upon which the Jed 49ers could be built. That was the plan, and when the 49ers were wretched, it worked.
But going from wretched to mediocre is the easy part for any coach. It’s the next step that proves a man’s value in the job, and struggling to master that has exposed Singletary not as a man of iron, but a bottle on the sea.
And if you can’t rely on a guy for the reason you hired him to begin with, you probably can’t rely on him to believe in the next thing, or the thing after that.
In short, it’s one thing to declare victory over Dennis O’Donnell. It’s another to get grown men and employees to follow and believe week after week, and if the players sense they cannot believe in a man whose words become inoperative so quickly, you’ll see more games like Sunday’s, and more seasons like the last seven.
The problem with Singletary isn’t intellect. It’s that he doesn’t possess the abundance of strategic foresight that coaches with more experience tend to have. Other coaches who have fired coordinators quickly tend to fail spectacularly because they couldn’t fashion the strengths-versus-weaknesses equations soon enough to avoid the chaos that results.
He couldn’t see Raye as a problem in March or June because he thought it was more important to give Alex Smith continuity, and he used fierce loyalty and unwavering belief as the reason to keep him in place. And that’s plainly no good, especially when the loyalty and belief are eradicated so quickly.
And while we’re at it, what happened to the need for Smithian continuity during his all-nighter? Gone, in a snap.
And now, without loyalty or belief to buttress his arguments, Singletary has to find another gift, and it isn’t as an offensive tactician. Or a strategic thinker. Or a dominator of minds. As of the end of his press conference, he said he still hadn’t told the players he had canned Raye. Now that seems to any logician to be an obvious detail.
So what comes next for Singletary, save an ignominious season and his ultimate firing for not being what he purported to be?
One, he can either become a coach/CEO without portfolio, leaving the defense with Greg Manusky and the offense with Johnson. That gives him little to do except deal with the media and look like the guy in charge, hardly a sensible use of his time, or ours.
Or he has to redefine who he is and what his strengths and contributions are. And Singletary, who likes to live in an unambiguous world without many shades of gray, does not seem the sort for reinvention, let alone shades of anything.
That combination of gifts normally doesn’t end well.
Maybe it can with Singletary; he is at his best when underestimated, and he is unlikely to be estimated much less than he is right now.
But his first job is to prove he really is in command of his own impulses, because he is giving off the unmistakable vibe of a man who isn’t sure what he thinks, and for a man who claims to be secure in his convictions, that plays worst of all.
Read more: Ratto: Singletary Talks One Game, Plays Another
Tune to SportsNet Central at 6, 10:30 and midnight on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area for more on this story
CSNBayArea.com
So it’s settled, then. Jimmy Raye did this to the 49ers.
Pathetic. Also, predictable. And most of all, spectacularly impulsive.
This is Mike Singletary’s legacy -- believe with all his heart about something, and then swing wildly in an 180-degree pivot when his first instinct proves wrong. Tuesday morning, the offense ran well against New Orleans. Sunday evening, the offense was a shambles. Time to blow something up.
In short, Raye is a scapegoat, and nothing more. Perhaps a well-deserving scapegoat given the results, but a thoroughly scaped goat nonetheless.
He did what he was told as best he could, and to get canned a day after Singletary stood so stridently behind him and front of him means that his dismissal was, barring some explosion in a meeting room or plane that Comrade Maiocco doesn’t know about, simply a cover for a grander problem.
And we expected more of Singletary than that. Our bad, ultimately.
Raye was an easy target, because he wasn’t the prototypical young, spry, precise coach. Also, because what he did (at Singletary’s behest) didn’t work with this team.
So before you get your delicates in a knot, understand that Raye’s firing is not without justification on the merits.
That said, this was a problem Singletary should have recognized before training camp, based on a clear and unambiguous vision for the offense. Singletary does not have that, between the ball-control-turned-spread-turned-ball-control offensive scheme, the drafting, coddling and non-usage of Michael Crabtree, and the acquisition of Brian Westbrook which has gone so well that Westbrook may as well still be a Philadelphia Eagle.
In short, Singletary’s main lack as a coach is not his lack of technical expertise, or his over-reliance on motivational speechifying, but the fact that his offensive core beliefs aren‘t really core beliefs at all, but theories he believes in right up to the point in which he doesn’t believe in them any more.
The message? He doesn’t coach so much as thrash about for a solution that as often as not doesn’t come.
There is a school of thought that this was a decision forced upon him by his superiors, of which there are only three -- Jed York, Paraag Marathe and (I guess) Trent Baalke -- but the result is the same. He either caved to pressure, in which case he is not the all-powerful man the players and staff can rely upon, or he turned from Raye to Mike Johnson after a sleepless night of film study, in which case he is not the implacable rock upon which the players and staff can rely upon.
Singletary was the too-solid-for-words foundation upon which the Jed 49ers could be built. That was the plan, and when the 49ers were wretched, it worked.
But going from wretched to mediocre is the easy part for any coach. It’s the next step that proves a man’s value in the job, and struggling to master that has exposed Singletary not as a man of iron, but a bottle on the sea.
And if you can’t rely on a guy for the reason you hired him to begin with, you probably can’t rely on him to believe in the next thing, or the thing after that.
In short, it’s one thing to declare victory over Dennis O’Donnell. It’s another to get grown men and employees to follow and believe week after week, and if the players sense they cannot believe in a man whose words become inoperative so quickly, you’ll see more games like Sunday’s, and more seasons like the last seven.
The problem with Singletary isn’t intellect. It’s that he doesn’t possess the abundance of strategic foresight that coaches with more experience tend to have. Other coaches who have fired coordinators quickly tend to fail spectacularly because they couldn’t fashion the strengths-versus-weaknesses equations soon enough to avoid the chaos that results.
He couldn’t see Raye as a problem in March or June because he thought it was more important to give Alex Smith continuity, and he used fierce loyalty and unwavering belief as the reason to keep him in place. And that’s plainly no good, especially when the loyalty and belief are eradicated so quickly.
And while we’re at it, what happened to the need for Smithian continuity during his all-nighter? Gone, in a snap.
And now, without loyalty or belief to buttress his arguments, Singletary has to find another gift, and it isn’t as an offensive tactician. Or a strategic thinker. Or a dominator of minds. As of the end of his press conference, he said he still hadn’t told the players he had canned Raye. Now that seems to any logician to be an obvious detail.
So what comes next for Singletary, save an ignominious season and his ultimate firing for not being what he purported to be?
One, he can either become a coach/CEO without portfolio, leaving the defense with Greg Manusky and the offense with Johnson. That gives him little to do except deal with the media and look like the guy in charge, hardly a sensible use of his time, or ours.
Or he has to redefine who he is and what his strengths and contributions are. And Singletary, who likes to live in an unambiguous world without many shades of gray, does not seem the sort for reinvention, let alone shades of anything.
That combination of gifts normally doesn’t end well.
Maybe it can with Singletary; he is at his best when underestimated, and he is unlikely to be estimated much less than he is right now.
But his first job is to prove he really is in command of his own impulses, because he is giving off the unmistakable vibe of a man who isn’t sure what he thinks, and for a man who claims to be secure in his convictions, that plays worst of all.
Read more: Ratto: Singletary Talks One Game, Plays Another
Tune to SportsNet Central at 6, 10:30 and midnight on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area for more on this story
Where are those niners at... 0-5 guaranteed 0-6 on the 17th!
Who you guys gonna take with that first pick in the draft???
League Leaders - Offense
Total Offense (YPG) Complete List
1. San Diego Chargers 461.3
2. Denver Broncos 417.0
3. Indianapolis Colts 412.7
4. Houston Texans 407.0
5. Dallas Cowboys 391.7
Passing (YPG) Complete List
1. Denver Broncos 350.0
2. San Diego Chargers 345.0
3. Indianapolis Colts 331.3
4. Dallas Cowboys 311.7
5. Chicago Bears 277.0
Rushing (YPG) Complete List
1. Kansas City Chiefs 160.7
2. Atlanta Falcons 160.3
3. Pittsburgh Steelers 150.0
4. Oakland Raiders 147.3
5. Houston Texans 146.3
League Leaders - Defense
Total Defense (YPG) Complete List
1. Baltimore Ravens 244.3
2. Green Bay Packers 260.7
3. Oakland Raiders 260.7
4. San Diego Chargers 272.7
5. Minnesota Vikings 276.3
Passing (YPG) Complete List
1. Baltimore Ravens 116.7
2. Oakland Raiders 127.7
3. Green Bay Packers 144.0
4. New York Giants 169.3
5. Tennessee Titans 178.3
Rushing (YPG) Complete List
1. Chicago Bears 39.7
2. Houston Texans 54.3
3. Pittsburgh Steelers 59.7
4. New York Jets 61.7
5. Seattle Seahawks
Who you guys gonna take with that first pick in the draft???
League Leaders - Offense
Total Offense (YPG) Complete List
1. San Diego Chargers 461.3
2. Denver Broncos 417.0
3. Indianapolis Colts 412.7
4. Houston Texans 407.0
5. Dallas Cowboys 391.7
Passing (YPG) Complete List
1. Denver Broncos 350.0
2. San Diego Chargers 345.0
3. Indianapolis Colts 331.3
4. Dallas Cowboys 311.7
5. Chicago Bears 277.0
Rushing (YPG) Complete List
1. Kansas City Chiefs 160.7
2. Atlanta Falcons 160.3
3. Pittsburgh Steelers 150.0
4. Oakland Raiders 147.3
5. Houston Texans 146.3
League Leaders - Defense
Total Defense (YPG) Complete List
1. Baltimore Ravens 244.3
2. Green Bay Packers 260.7
3. Oakland Raiders 260.7
4. San Diego Chargers 272.7
5. Minnesota Vikings 276.3
Passing (YPG) Complete List
1. Baltimore Ravens 116.7
2. Oakland Raiders 127.7
3. Green Bay Packers 144.0
4. New York Giants 169.3
5. Tennessee Titans 178.3
Rushing (YPG) Complete List
1. Chicago Bears 39.7
2. Houston Texans 54.3
3. Pittsburgh Steelers 59.7
4. New York Jets 61.7
5. Seattle Seahawks
Matt Maiocco
CSNBayArea.com
Jimmy Raye, whom 49ers coach Mike Singletary fired as offensive coordinator Monday, told Comcast SportsNet that he was carrying out the head coach's vision for the offense.
When Raye interviewed with Singletary for the 49ers' vacant offensive-coordinator position in January 2009, Raye said he made no demands of what he needed on offense. Raye said he agreed to go to work for the 49ers with the full understanding of Singletary's offensive philosophy.
"I was carrying out the head coach's wishes," Raye said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I was doing what I was brought here to do under his philosophy he wanted installed. I tried as best I could to carry that out with the quarterbacking and the personnel that we had. I didn't come in and say, 'This is my offense, and I'm running this, and if you don't like it, you can get somebody else.' I was doing what was given me to do."
Singletary fired Raye early Monday morning, less than a day after saying Raye would be the offensive coordinator for the remainder of the season. Singletary explained what happened during his press conference on Monday at the team's headquarters in Santa Clara.
"After I got back here I went home, and I said, 'You know what, I'm just going to go back and look at the film," Singletary said. "So, I came back here and basically spent the night looking at film. And just kind of looked at the overall view of where we are, and looking at where we need to go, and felt that I needed to make the change."
The 49ers had gotten off to a 0-3 start with an offense that ranks 20th in the NFL in total offense. But the 49ers are 31st in scoring (12.7 points per game) and third-down efficiency (24 percent). In Raye's 19 games as offensive coordinator, the 49ers kicked six field goals but never scored a touchdown on the opening drive.
* * *
Here is the full transcript of my interview with Raye:
Question: Did it surprise you when coach Mike Singletary told you he was letting you go?
Raye: "I think that's a bit of an understatement. Yes, it did."
Q: Did you think the offense was on track to where you thought it would be?
Raye: "I thought we were a work in progress. Coming off of last year, we were competitive. I thought there was improvement in the play of the offense. I thought with the new center (David Baas), a new right tackle (Anthony Davis), a new left guard (Mike Iupati), (Michael) Crabtree missing all of training camp, I thought we were a work in progress. But we showed signs of getting on track in the New Orleans Monday night game. I thought we were making strides. The continuity wasn't where it should be because of the changing, but I thought we were heading in the right direction."
Q: Was there ever any debate inside the building, philosophically, between you and Mike Singletary about what the offense should be doing?
Raye: "No."
Q: Were you given full power to do whatever you wanted with the offense?
Raye: "I was carrying out the head coach's wishes. I was doing what I was brought here to do under his philosophy he wanted installed. I tried as best I could to carry that out with the quarterbacking and the personnel that we had. I didn't come in and say, 'This is my offense, and I'm running this, and if you don't like it, you can get somebody else.' I was doing what was given me to do.
Q: Do you think the decision for the 49ers to part ways with you came from above Mike Singletary?
Raye: "I don't know. I don't know and I'm not going to speculate on that. I worked for him. He's the guy I talked to who told me he was relieving me. You know me well enough to know I deal in the facts. And he was the guy I communicated with. I never communicated with management since I've been here about anything football-wise. He was my superior, so he's the one who made the decision, as far as I'm concerned.
Q: After the game, Mike said you'd be the coordinator for the rest of the season. Did he ever express the same thing to you?
Raye: "I wasn't aware of that. I fully expected that. They've had a different offensive coordinator for the past seven years, and we'd started to get something going continuity-wise. I thought that. But, no, I wasn't aware that was said."
Q: Was there a pre-scheduled meeting for Monday morning between you and Singletary?
Raye: "No, there wasn't a meeting scheduled. I went in like my normal routine at 6 o'clock Monday morning to start working on Atlanta, and Mike came in and said he wanted to talk to me. We had the conversation and that was it.
Q: Being in this game as long as you've been, I'm sure you've seen a lot. Was this more difficult to take?
Raye: "No. I told the team when we cut to the 53-man roster, I told them that the expectations have gone up and it would not be business as usual. The scrutiny would be swift. So, I guess, when you go 0-3 and you start off with the expectations we had, with everybody saying we were going to be this dominant team in the NFC West, and we start off 0-3, lost a division game in Seattle, it didn't surprise me that something happened. I was still a little stunned and disappointed, but if we'd been 1-2 or 2-1 and even won the Monday night game, I think this conversation wouldn't be taking place. I think with the level of expectation and, three weeks into the season, the presumed failure that a young team is trying to germinate and find itself is a little, I think, a little rushed. It's a journey -- a 16-game journey. And you can still win your division and do the things you set out to do. It was a reaction. I wasn't aware of what you said earlier about that statement (Singletary's vote of confidence), but it really doesn't matter now because I was terminated.
"The only way I look at it, I feel OK about what I did here, the development of Alex Smith and the development of Vernon Davis, the play of the offense over the last 10 games or so of last year, the infusion of the new talent of offensive linemen, the change at center, the loss of Ted Ginn, the change there . . . all the things that go into a pro football season. We were taking that on and trying to combat it. But you have to win, and I understand that. We didn't win, and I paid the price for that. I'm not going to let what I've stood for over 33 years in the National Football League be affected by the 19 games I coached for the San Francisco 49ers. I did a standup job for them. I feel good about what we were able to accomplish. Would I've liked to have been 3-0? Yes. But it wasn't the case. It's not going to dissuade me from what was accomplished, and what I think was in the making if we'd been able to continue doing what we were doing."
Q: After Seattle game you said the offensive coordinator and the quarterback have to take a lot of the heat, rightly or wrongly, after the offense struggles. How would you say Alex Smith did, as far as carrying out what you wanted him to do?
Raye: "I think he did well. It's a work in progress. There were signs . . . it's like raising a child. There were signs of the things you taught and the maturity. And there were times when it was just OK. In the long run, it was at the point where the adjustments were not as difficult or the things you talked about weren't as difficult to correct. They were not as far-reaching as they were a year ago. That part of it was OK. We went into Kansas City, it was a 10 o'clock start for us, Pacific Time. I don't know if our guys handled that very well. We didn't play with a lot of pop. They played with a lot of zest and energy. They beat us. We didn't play very well coming off what was anticipated a step forward against New Orleans, so I was taken aback at that. But it's one step in 16, as I viewed it. I was just ready to go on to the next game. You learn in this business that you have to move on to the next opponent. You can't dwell on 'coulda, woulda, if.' I was moving on. I was OK with where that all was."
Q: When you look at the offense, it seemed you guys had become predictable with the inside running game and the short-passing game and were never attempted to stretch the field. Is that a fair assessment?
Raye: "No, it's not. We feed and dial off the run. That is the backbone of the structure that was in place. Kansas City was a good run defense team, and that will prove itself out over the course of the season. They're very good against the run, and early on we anticipated that was going to be the case. Because of the crowd nose and what had happened in Seattle, we didn't want to get into a throw-throw-throw situation of holding the ball and letting No. 91 (Tamba Hail) and No. 50 (Mike Vrabel) get up the field on us. Some of that was by design to get the ball out quickly. We didn't think, 'We're not going to throw the ball down the field.' I saw a couple go-routes fail over the top of Crabtree's head out of bounds. It's in the eye of the beholder, and because I look at it more from a technical aspect than a layperson, people's judgment is what it is, and I'm going to try to dissuade that."
Q: Did you feel you had the full support of your coaching staff? As MIke Singletary said, did you feel like there was a rat in the building?
Raye: "The guys I worked with, I enjoyed the time I spent with them. I think they're quality football coaches. I didn't spend any energy in trying to find out if somebody in there was uncomfortable or whether somebody in there had a different agenda. I never spent any energy on that. I thought they all did an admirable job.
Q: Now, Mike Johnson takes over as coordinator. Have you spoken to him since this has happened? And what kind of job do you think he'll do in that role?
Raye: "No, I haven't had an opportunity to have a conversation with him. I think he'll do fine."
* * *
Raye, 64, began his NFL coaching career in 1977 with the 49ers under Ken Meyers. He coached in the NFL every season since. This was his 34th season.
Q: What's are your plans now?
Raye: "Foremost on my plate is getting to my grandson's basketball game on Friday in Houston, Texas. Short of that, getting myself moved back home to the East Coast (Pinehurst, N.C.). Take a deep breath and look back on it with a non-emotional state and make some assessments and go from there.
Q: Do you plan to remain on as president of the NFL Coaches Association?
Raye: "I haven't made that decision. At this point I don't want to deal with that. I didn't anticipate third week of the season not doing football like I've done for the last 34 years, so I want to take my time and let this all settle and make some decisions going forward once I get back and settled."
Read more: Raye's Exit Interview: He Followed Coach's 'Wishes'
Tune to SportsNet Central at 6, 10:30 and midnight on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area for more on this story
CSNBayArea.com
Jimmy Raye, whom 49ers coach Mike Singletary fired as offensive coordinator Monday, told Comcast SportsNet that he was carrying out the head coach's vision for the offense.
When Raye interviewed with Singletary for the 49ers' vacant offensive-coordinator position in January 2009, Raye said he made no demands of what he needed on offense. Raye said he agreed to go to work for the 49ers with the full understanding of Singletary's offensive philosophy.
"I was carrying out the head coach's wishes," Raye said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I was doing what I was brought here to do under his philosophy he wanted installed. I tried as best I could to carry that out with the quarterbacking and the personnel that we had. I didn't come in and say, 'This is my offense, and I'm running this, and if you don't like it, you can get somebody else.' I was doing what was given me to do."
Singletary fired Raye early Monday morning, less than a day after saying Raye would be the offensive coordinator for the remainder of the season. Singletary explained what happened during his press conference on Monday at the team's headquarters in Santa Clara.
"After I got back here I went home, and I said, 'You know what, I'm just going to go back and look at the film," Singletary said. "So, I came back here and basically spent the night looking at film. And just kind of looked at the overall view of where we are, and looking at where we need to go, and felt that I needed to make the change."
The 49ers had gotten off to a 0-3 start with an offense that ranks 20th in the NFL in total offense. But the 49ers are 31st in scoring (12.7 points per game) and third-down efficiency (24 percent). In Raye's 19 games as offensive coordinator, the 49ers kicked six field goals but never scored a touchdown on the opening drive.
* * *
Here is the full transcript of my interview with Raye:
Question: Did it surprise you when coach Mike Singletary told you he was letting you go?
Raye: "I think that's a bit of an understatement. Yes, it did."
Q: Did you think the offense was on track to where you thought it would be?
Raye: "I thought we were a work in progress. Coming off of last year, we were competitive. I thought there was improvement in the play of the offense. I thought with the new center (David Baas), a new right tackle (Anthony Davis), a new left guard (Mike Iupati), (Michael) Crabtree missing all of training camp, I thought we were a work in progress. But we showed signs of getting on track in the New Orleans Monday night game. I thought we were making strides. The continuity wasn't where it should be because of the changing, but I thought we were heading in the right direction."
Q: Was there ever any debate inside the building, philosophically, between you and Mike Singletary about what the offense should be doing?
Raye: "No."
Q: Were you given full power to do whatever you wanted with the offense?
Raye: "I was carrying out the head coach's wishes. I was doing what I was brought here to do under his philosophy he wanted installed. I tried as best I could to carry that out with the quarterbacking and the personnel that we had. I didn't come in and say, 'This is my offense, and I'm running this, and if you don't like it, you can get somebody else.' I was doing what was given me to do.
Q: Do you think the decision for the 49ers to part ways with you came from above Mike Singletary?
Raye: "I don't know. I don't know and I'm not going to speculate on that. I worked for him. He's the guy I talked to who told me he was relieving me. You know me well enough to know I deal in the facts. And he was the guy I communicated with. I never communicated with management since I've been here about anything football-wise. He was my superior, so he's the one who made the decision, as far as I'm concerned.
Q: After the game, Mike said you'd be the coordinator for the rest of the season. Did he ever express the same thing to you?
Raye: "I wasn't aware of that. I fully expected that. They've had a different offensive coordinator for the past seven years, and we'd started to get something going continuity-wise. I thought that. But, no, I wasn't aware that was said."
Q: Was there a pre-scheduled meeting for Monday morning between you and Singletary?
Raye: "No, there wasn't a meeting scheduled. I went in like my normal routine at 6 o'clock Monday morning to start working on Atlanta, and Mike came in and said he wanted to talk to me. We had the conversation and that was it.
Q: Being in this game as long as you've been, I'm sure you've seen a lot. Was this more difficult to take?
Raye: "No. I told the team when we cut to the 53-man roster, I told them that the expectations have gone up and it would not be business as usual. The scrutiny would be swift. So, I guess, when you go 0-3 and you start off with the expectations we had, with everybody saying we were going to be this dominant team in the NFC West, and we start off 0-3, lost a division game in Seattle, it didn't surprise me that something happened. I was still a little stunned and disappointed, but if we'd been 1-2 or 2-1 and even won the Monday night game, I think this conversation wouldn't be taking place. I think with the level of expectation and, three weeks into the season, the presumed failure that a young team is trying to germinate and find itself is a little, I think, a little rushed. It's a journey -- a 16-game journey. And you can still win your division and do the things you set out to do. It was a reaction. I wasn't aware of what you said earlier about that statement (Singletary's vote of confidence), but it really doesn't matter now because I was terminated.
"The only way I look at it, I feel OK about what I did here, the development of Alex Smith and the development of Vernon Davis, the play of the offense over the last 10 games or so of last year, the infusion of the new talent of offensive linemen, the change at center, the loss of Ted Ginn, the change there . . . all the things that go into a pro football season. We were taking that on and trying to combat it. But you have to win, and I understand that. We didn't win, and I paid the price for that. I'm not going to let what I've stood for over 33 years in the National Football League be affected by the 19 games I coached for the San Francisco 49ers. I did a standup job for them. I feel good about what we were able to accomplish. Would I've liked to have been 3-0? Yes. But it wasn't the case. It's not going to dissuade me from what was accomplished, and what I think was in the making if we'd been able to continue doing what we were doing."
Q: After Seattle game you said the offensive coordinator and the quarterback have to take a lot of the heat, rightly or wrongly, after the offense struggles. How would you say Alex Smith did, as far as carrying out what you wanted him to do?
Raye: "I think he did well. It's a work in progress. There were signs . . . it's like raising a child. There were signs of the things you taught and the maturity. And there were times when it was just OK. In the long run, it was at the point where the adjustments were not as difficult or the things you talked about weren't as difficult to correct. They were not as far-reaching as they were a year ago. That part of it was OK. We went into Kansas City, it was a 10 o'clock start for us, Pacific Time. I don't know if our guys handled that very well. We didn't play with a lot of pop. They played with a lot of zest and energy. They beat us. We didn't play very well coming off what was anticipated a step forward against New Orleans, so I was taken aback at that. But it's one step in 16, as I viewed it. I was just ready to go on to the next game. You learn in this business that you have to move on to the next opponent. You can't dwell on 'coulda, woulda, if.' I was moving on. I was OK with where that all was."
Q: When you look at the offense, it seemed you guys had become predictable with the inside running game and the short-passing game and were never attempted to stretch the field. Is that a fair assessment?
Raye: "No, it's not. We feed and dial off the run. That is the backbone of the structure that was in place. Kansas City was a good run defense team, and that will prove itself out over the course of the season. They're very good against the run, and early on we anticipated that was going to be the case. Because of the crowd nose and what had happened in Seattle, we didn't want to get into a throw-throw-throw situation of holding the ball and letting No. 91 (Tamba Hail) and No. 50 (Mike Vrabel) get up the field on us. Some of that was by design to get the ball out quickly. We didn't think, 'We're not going to throw the ball down the field.' I saw a couple go-routes fail over the top of Crabtree's head out of bounds. It's in the eye of the beholder, and because I look at it more from a technical aspect than a layperson, people's judgment is what it is, and I'm going to try to dissuade that."
Q: Did you feel you had the full support of your coaching staff? As MIke Singletary said, did you feel like there was a rat in the building?
Raye: "The guys I worked with, I enjoyed the time I spent with them. I think they're quality football coaches. I didn't spend any energy in trying to find out if somebody in there was uncomfortable or whether somebody in there had a different agenda. I never spent any energy on that. I thought they all did an admirable job.
Q: Now, Mike Johnson takes over as coordinator. Have you spoken to him since this has happened? And what kind of job do you think he'll do in that role?
Raye: "No, I haven't had an opportunity to have a conversation with him. I think he'll do fine."
* * *
Raye, 64, began his NFL coaching career in 1977 with the 49ers under Ken Meyers. He coached in the NFL every season since. This was his 34th season.
Q: What's are your plans now?
Raye: "Foremost on my plate is getting to my grandson's basketball game on Friday in Houston, Texas. Short of that, getting myself moved back home to the East Coast (Pinehurst, N.C.). Take a deep breath and look back on it with a non-emotional state and make some assessments and go from there.
Q: Do you plan to remain on as president of the NFL Coaches Association?
Raye: "I haven't made that decision. At this point I don't want to deal with that. I didn't anticipate third week of the season not doing football like I've done for the last 34 years, so I want to take my time and let this all settle and make some decisions going forward once I get back and settled."
Read more: Raye's Exit Interview: He Followed Coach's 'Wishes'
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