9:31AM
SF Examiner: Bay Area due for a turnaround
9:31 AM
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
Football season doesn’t begin with the romantic nonsense that surrounds baseball, of spring and flowers and summer in the future. Instead it starts harshly, pragmatically, sometimes with broken bones, and in the Bay Area of late, with broken dreams.
Our impatience has reached a limit. We don’t need any more tales of the way it was, of Joe and Steve, of Marv Hubbard and the Mad Stork. We’ve been living in the past or living with potential. Neither has been fulfilling.
Time flies when you’re having fun. Also when you’re miserable — or your teams are miserable. In Northern California they certainly have been.
Six straight years now since the Niners or Raiders had a winning season. Six straight for either. Six straight for both.
It didn’t used to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. When does it stop being this way?
August is when NFL franchises sell hope in horribly large doses. Frank Gore, we’re advised, has fresh legs. JaMarcus Russell is telling the media the opposition will be wondering “‘What are they going to do on this down, pass it or run it?’ Either way, we’re going to kill ’em.”
Since 2002, when the Raiders went to the Super Bowl and the Niners to the playoffs, they’ve been killing themselves. They had too many coaches and too few victories. They’ve had promotional campaigns, which is the way of the world in the 21st century, but they haven’t had enough substance.
Alex Smith or Shaun Hill? Russell or Jeff Garcia? It doesn’t matter. It’s not who, it’s how. Is there a quarterback out there who can win games? A quarterback who can make a change?
Who cares if Alex’s hands are too small or JaMarcus’ girth is too large. They aren’t in a beauty contest. To reuse the cliché, there are no style points, just points for touchdowns.
The coaches, both in their first full seasons, Tom Cable of the Raiders, Mike Singletary of the 49ers, are careful with their words, tough with their demands. A bad coach can lose games. A good coach, however, can’t necessarily win games.
The attitude is right, the preparation is correct. Which means very little. Show me a team that concedes it wasn’t well-schooled or a team that admitted it was unprepared.
Winning is about making something — making putts, making baskets — in football, about making plays. When you’ve had six straight losing seasons, about the only thing you’ve made is a mess of things.
Since the end of ’08, when each team finished with victories in its final two games, there’s been a lot of hyperventilation about what 2009 is going to bring. This is the year the Niners find success. This is the year the Raiders find improvement.
A skeptic wonders. Six straight years of losing makes anyone cautious. In August, yes, things appear better than they’ve been in a long while, but how will they look in December?
When we get that answer, we’ll know whether this was the season that made a difference or just another in a world of sporting failure.
Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.
- - - - - -
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-Bay-Area-due-for-a-turnaround-52487192.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company
Special to The Examiner
Football season doesn’t begin with the romantic nonsense that surrounds baseball, of spring and flowers and summer in the future. Instead it starts harshly, pragmatically, sometimes with broken bones, and in the Bay Area of late, with broken dreams.
Our impatience has reached a limit. We don’t need any more tales of the way it was, of Joe and Steve, of Marv Hubbard and the Mad Stork. We’ve been living in the past or living with potential. Neither has been fulfilling.
Time flies when you’re having fun. Also when you’re miserable — or your teams are miserable. In Northern California they certainly have been.
Six straight years now since the Niners or Raiders had a winning season. Six straight for either. Six straight for both.
It didn’t used to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. When does it stop being this way?
August is when NFL franchises sell hope in horribly large doses. Frank Gore, we’re advised, has fresh legs. JaMarcus Russell is telling the media the opposition will be wondering “‘What are they going to do on this down, pass it or run it?’ Either way, we’re going to kill ’em.”
Since 2002, when the Raiders went to the Super Bowl and the Niners to the playoffs, they’ve been killing themselves. They had too many coaches and too few victories. They’ve had promotional campaigns, which is the way of the world in the 21st century, but they haven’t had enough substance.
Alex Smith or Shaun Hill? Russell or Jeff Garcia? It doesn’t matter. It’s not who, it’s how. Is there a quarterback out there who can win games? A quarterback who can make a change?
Who cares if Alex’s hands are too small or JaMarcus’ girth is too large. They aren’t in a beauty contest. To reuse the cliché, there are no style points, just points for touchdowns.
The coaches, both in their first full seasons, Tom Cable of the Raiders, Mike Singletary of the 49ers, are careful with their words, tough with their demands. A bad coach can lose games. A good coach, however, can’t necessarily win games.
The attitude is right, the preparation is correct. Which means very little. Show me a team that concedes it wasn’t well-schooled or a team that admitted it was unprepared.
Winning is about making something — making putts, making baskets — in football, about making plays. When you’ve had six straight losing seasons, about the only thing you’ve made is a mess of things.
Since the end of ’08, when each team finished with victories in its final two games, there’s been a lot of hyperventilation about what 2009 is going to bring. This is the year the Niners find success. This is the year the Raiders find improvement.
A skeptic wonders. Six straight years of losing makes anyone cautious. In August, yes, things appear better than they’ve been in a long while, but how will they look in December?
When we get that answer, we’ll know whether this was the season that made a difference or just another in a world of sporting failure.
Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.
- - - - - -
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-Bay-Area-due-for-a-turnaround-52487192.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company
Reader Comments (1)
You have a good point about us all living in the
past with football. We went from winning seasons in
football to whinning seasons.
Sometimes it seems it's all
we have, though. We're always hoping for a turnaround.
It's a really hard act to follow, once we had such a
great world conquering team. But I'm ready for winning
again.
Thanks for the article, as always ! Laura Wuest