AGRI Biz

The NFL Draft has always been a fascinating dichotomy for Joe Football Fan. We spend a whole weekend in April laying about on the couch in rapt attention, listening to analysts prattle on about random college players from obscure outposts from across the country. These "Draft Experts" whose job descriptions when you think about it are basically to be fortune tellers, have watched these young men—kids, really—at most a handful of ...

San Francisco head coach Mike Singletary has this curious habit of thanking the big fella (and I don't mean defensive tackle Aubrayo Franklin) every time his team comes out of a game with a win. This weekend however, he might want to thank Her, as in Mother Nature, before the game even starts. Around last Tuesday or so, the situation looked very bleak for the red and gold. ...

It wasn't supposed to go down this way for coach Mike Singletary and his San Francisco 49ers. Not again. Not for the seventh straight season. He was certain, that after an off-season of roster tweaks, after the hiring an offensive coordinator that he hand-picked, and after guiding his charges through exhaustive minicamps and a brutal training camp, that he had a team of winners. The way they outfought, outsmarted and outlasted the defending conference ...

The San Francisco 49ers lost another game on the road—this time 20-17 at Seattle, on kicker Olindo Mare's 30-yard field goal at the gun—as is their wont, and the defeat, coupled with Arizona's surprisingly easy humiliation of the Vikings later in the evening just about assured that they will spend another season watching the playoffs rather than participating in them.  However, while most fans and even columnists are doom-and-gloom and fatalistic ...

The San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks have only been division-mates for the past eight years, yet for some odd reason, whenever anything seminal has happened to the red and gold of late, Seattle has been directly involved. Take for example, 49ers coach Mike Singletary's maiden voyage into the murky waters of Figurehead Lagoon. It came on October 26, 2008 against the Seahawks. Seattle was a decrepit outfit back then, decimated by ...

Ask the average 49ers fan on the Stairmaster why the team has a disappointing 4-6 record, and the answer you're most likely to get besides "Who the hell are you?" and "You're really bad at small talk," is going to be... A) Jimmy Raye, that dastardly stubborn, old-fashioned offensive coordinator of ours, or B) Alex Smith, whom the team plainly refuses to accept is a bust, or C) Mike Singletary, the very personification ...

In what is rapidly becoming a Monday morning ritual around these parts, San Francisco 49ers fans are spending the early hours of their day cursing out the offensive coordinator in between bites of their bran muffins and sips of their soy lattes. It's never the defense's fault. It's never the offensive line's fault. Quarterback Alex Smith is better than people on the East Coast, who can't be bothered to watch 49ers games, think ...

Suppose some stranger comes up to you on the street and asks you, the devoted 49ers fan in your throwback Joe Montana jersey, who's better: Aaron Rodgers or Alex Smith? Almost reflexively you answer Rodgers. I mean, really, you don't even think about it for more than a second. Rodgers has the better numbers, he's had more immediate success, he's never been called a bust, and he was picked within the top ...

Those of you who follow the 49ers with the fervor one usually reserves for teams that are, uh, you know, good , probably watched, or at least heard about, 49ers coach Mike Singletary's lengthy exchange last Monday with a local reporter. Was the scribe grandstanding and trying to make himself a part of the story? Absolutely. Did Singletary take his monologue a bit too far, regardless? There's no doubt. It's ironic, for a man who's ...

For seven games we in the local media have had a lot of funùand a lot of easy columnsùat Jimmy Raye's expense. We've ridiculed the 49ers ancient offensive coordinator for his conservative game plans, his over-reliance on the two back offense, his reluctance to put his quarterbacks in the shotgun, and for his stubborn refusal to admit that the team cannot run, not even a little bit, against eight man fronts. Not ...