SF Examiner: Singletary’s choice of Hill far from shocking

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — Shaun Hill gets what every quarterback wants, the starting position. Alex Smith gets platitudes, words. Kind ones, but nevertheless words. He’s with the 49ers, but he’s not of them.

Football coaches know what to say. They make a smack in the face seem like a pat on the back.

Mike Singletary is going with Hill, hardly a surprise, since Singletary tossed him in last season when the coach no longer could tolerate J.T. O’Sullivan and the Mike Martz chaos, and since Smith is coming off a year without football.

It’s Singletary’s team, and he can do what he chooses.

Other than deny Smith is a backup.

“I don’t see backups,” Singletary insisted. “One of the things I don’t want on this team are backups. I want starters, and I want No. 2s. They’re only No. 2 because they’re not as good as the starter.”

Which, semantics to the contrary, makes them a backup.

Poor Alex. Rich Alex. He got that $40 million contract, which has since been restructured. He was the No. 1 pick in the 2005 draft, going to restore the Niners to greatness, going to follow in the golden footprints of John Brodie, Joe Montana and Steve Young.

Except he came from Utah’s spread offense, and as we’ve learned from the failings of David Klinger and Andre Ware, that college system proves a restriction in the NFL.

Then Smith not only was injured but was berated for not playing hurt by his coach at the time, Mike Nolan, the man who took Smith No. 1.

Singletary gave Smith accolades “I’m very proud of what he’s had to overcome,” said the coach.

But Singletary still gave Hill the role Smith wants so desperately.

“It’s nothing you want to hear,” Smith said of being told Hill would be starting. “Nothing you get used to hearing.” 

Shaun Hill, a one-time free agent who conceded he didn’t take a snap his first six years in the NFL, is becoming the man in charge. Alex Smith, who was supposed to take the Niners to the playoffs, is becoming, OK, not the backup, the bench-warmer.

Singletary spoke of Hill’s presence, about intangibles. What he didn’t say was he believes Hill is better for the Chicago Bears-style offense the Niners will be utilizing, which will feature Frank Gore pounding out yardage and then Hill throwing a timely completion.

The coach wants a quarterback who doesn’t lose games even more than a quarterback who tries to win them.

The gap between Hill and Smith, Singletary explained, wasn’t large. The coach, however, likes Hill’s consistency, his leadership, his experience.

Smith hasn’t played a league game in two years. He had more to prove and still has more to prove.

“He has confidence,” Singletary reminded about Hill, “and probably was feeling in his mind he was the guy all along.”

They say the best job in sports is, sorry Mr. Singletary, backup quarterback. You’re never booed, never injured. Unless you’re elevated to No. 1.

“How many quarterbacks play all year?” Smith asked rhetorically. “I wish the best for Shaun, but my job is to be ready to go. I have to have perspective.”

Sounds good, even if it’s not as good as Shaun Hill’s job as starter.

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.

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Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company 

(ArtSpander Exclusive) Alex Smith shows he’s not afraid

SAN FRANCISCO -- He shows he’s not afraid. Mike Singletary was assessing one of his quarterbacks, was talking about the way Alex Smith took off after the guy who picked off one of his passes and picked him off, chased him down and then put him down with a tackle as tough as any defensive back ever could make.

It was a great play by Smith, tracking down the Oakland Raiders’ Ricky Brown, saving a touchdown. The interception, however, was not a great play. The pass wasn’t that bad, and maybe Josh Morgan who reached for the ball, deflected it, should have grabbed it. The pass wasn’t that good. It was high, the type of ball which often becomes an interception.

He was a starter again, Smith, if only briefly, if only in an exhibition game. He was trying to prove what because of bad luck and bad play he hadn’t proved in his previous four years in the NFL, that he deserved to be the first man selected in the 2005 draft, that he would be the player who would lead the San Francisco 49ers out their wilderness, out of the fog.

On Saturday night, all Alex Smith, the $35 million man proved, was he can lay a tough block, that he can run after the linebacker who intercepted pass. Otherwise, as Singletary, the Niners no-nonsense coach agreed, neither Smith nor the man whom Alex is competing against to be starter, distinguished himself.

Exhibition games, the NFL calls them preseason games so those full-fare tickets at $60 and $70 seem to have some value, don’t always prove a great deal. The Niners ended up beating the Raiders, 21-20, because after the Raiders scored late in the game they went for a two-point conversion, as a lot of journalists in attendance, wanting to avoid overtime.

So the Raiders and Niners were virtually equal, except Oakland knows its starting quarterback is JaMarcus Russell – who two years after Smith was the No. 1 pick – while the Niners are still in a quandary, if we are to believe Singletary.

“We’ll look at the film (Sunday),’’ Singletary said in that infamous coaching remark, when s someone wondered if the interception was Smith’s fault. “It’s one of those, you just have to look at it again.’’

If you look at Smith’s passer rating, you’d prefer not to look at it again. He was 4.2. Anything below the 70s or 80s is considered poor. A 4.2 is considered impossible. Alex completed 3 of 9 for only 30 yards and had the pick. Shaun Hill, who started the end of last season, had a rating of 50, completing 3 of 7 with no interceptions.

“If you look at the film,’’ agreed Smith, anticipating Singletary’s post-viewing judgment, “I think the numbers would say not much. It was better. I felt much better this week (than in the opener). I think the numbers can be deceiving. I’ll look at the film. I had a couple of throw-aways and stuff. I’ll take a look at the pick and see what I could have done differently.’’

Quarterbacks were everywhere Saturday night. The Raiders went from Russell to Jeff Garcia – remember, he was a star with the Niners when they had winning seasons to Bruce Gradkowski to Charlie Frye. For the Niners, after Smith and Hill, it was Nate Davis, who threw a TD pass, led the winning drive (or tying drive, if you ignore the try for two points by the Raiders and had a Montana-like rating of 103.

But that’s why the exhibitions are misleading. Is it your first string against their second string? Is the coach intent on developing a running game? Is the other team trying to find out whether its rookies are any good? For sure, everyone is trying to find out whether Smith will be any good.

Alex is so pleasant, so talented an athlete. But is he an NFL quarterback. At Utah, Smith played in the spread, never getting under center to take a snap. With the Niners, early on – as any rookie – he was overmatched. Then he was smacked around, incurring two serious injuries, the second of which, in year three, 2007, to his throwing shoulder, kept him out all of 2008.

His courage was questioned by then coach Mike Nolan, in front of the team. Nolan should have been here Saturday night to watch Smith cream a defender with a block and then seconds later race after and tackle Ricky Brown. Oh, and did we mention Smith in 2009 is learning from his fifth offensive coordinator in five years? Instead of faulting the kid, maybe we should credit him just for being there.

“Coming into the game,’’ Singletary said of Smith, “he knew what he had to do, as well as Shaun. It’s a matter of the coaches and myself taking a step back and saying, ‘OK, what do you do?’ and look at the film . . .It’s a matter of coming down to a decision between now and next week.’’

When it comes time, Mike Singletary won’t be afraid to make that decision, the way Alex Smith wasn’t afraid to make a tackle.

RealClearSports: Why So Outraged? Favre's Entitled to Do What He Wants

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

If we are to interpret this correctly, Brett Favre is to be condemned because he decided to get out of football and then, while a lot of people were ruminating about his career, decided to return to football. After a lot of vacillating and momentum shifts.

This business disturbed a lot of people, many of them sporting journalists, who thought Favre was being disingenuous and, even worse, using them to stay in a spotlight he not only hesitates to leave but in truth deserves a hell of a lot more than most other quarterbacks.

To which one must scream, who cares? What's with us? Brett Favre hasn't shot himself in the hip, hasn't been convicted of running down a pedestrian while intoxicated. But we're making a bigger issue of Favre's indecisiveness than of people guilty of felonies.

If it bothers you that Favre doesn't know how to exit gracefully, tough beans. Sure he's like the Packer who cried wolf, or cried literally if you remember those scenes from a couple of years back. Unless you've been there, you'll never understand.

Joe Montana, who knew a thing or two about quarterbacking, and about winning Super Bowls, having led the San Francisco 49ers to victories in four of them, kept trying to stay on when some thought he ought to depart.

Hey, the columnist said to Joe in more of a statement than a question, what do you have to prove? Go out play some golf.

"Easy for you to say,'' Montana responded. "You can retire and come back in two years. I can't. When I'm done, I'm done. So I want to stay as long as I can. I know someday I'll have to leave.''

Favre left. Then returned. Then left. Now is returning. He's 39, and one of these times, he won't be coming back. When a man has played football since the age of 8 or 10, or thereabouts, the end is traumatic. One day your life has changed forever. Favre is fighting against that change as long as possible.

A man who's been involved with the NFL for 40 years or so told me that Favre was being urged to play by those around him, especially the Minnesota Vikings. Come on, Brett, they said in so many words. This is where you belong. You're a football player, aren't you?

He's a football player and an actor, as we've seen in the Wrangler commercials, and a self-promoter. None of the above is an indictable offense. If Favre has troubles making a decision and sticking to it, that's a victimless crime. Why are we so outraged?

If you want to argue that, at age 39 and after a torn biceps, Favre no longer is either the competent leader or the presence he used to be in those glory days with the Packers, that's legitimate. But the Vikings obviously believe he's better than anyone else they have, and until proven differently, he is.

The critics complain Favre is selfish. As if that trait makes him different from any other athletic star. To be great, you have to think you're great, think you're special, have to ignore the skeptics or, in a quarterback's case, the defensive ends.

Brett Favre and Joe Montana and John Elway don't think the way we do. They just wanted the ball and enough time on the clock to get the job done. If it was the rush and self-gratification they needed, it was also the chance to do what was required of them.

It's always difficult for the fans when a longtime favorite ends up on another team, especially -- as the Vikings are for Favre's original club, the Packers -- a rival team. No, they're not overly pleased these days in Green Bay, and Brett is being referred to in terms as traitor and turncoat. Mercenary is more accurate.

All athletes in team sports are mercenaries. They get paid to play, but not without an affiliation. If the Packers don't want you, then maybe the Jets. And if not the Jets, then now the Vikes.

Too many headlines about sports figures allude to jail time and arrests. Plaxico Burress is off to the clink. Only Thursday, Tampa Bay cornerback Aqib Talib was jailed on charges of simple battery after he punched a cab driver.

All Brett Favre can be accused of is making statements that perhaps had no basis of fact. Politicians do that all the time and nobody seems to mind.

"The guys know I'm in it for the right reasons,'' Favre said on his return. Right or wrong, it isn't important. He doesn't know how to quit. The only issue is whether he still knows how to play football.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/08/21/why_so_outraged_favres_entitled_to_do_what_he_wants.html
© RealClearSports 2009

RealClearSports: Raiders Controversy: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NAPA, Calif. -- So nothing happened. If you don't include a coach with a smashed-up jaw. And a story changing by the day.

But this is wine country, where the Oakland Raiders practice, and why sound like sour grapes? This stuff happens all the time, doesn't it?

It's always something with the Raiders, other than winning. They've had six straight losing seasons, hardly a reflection of that mantra, "Commitment to Excellence.''

Last year the man in charge, Al Davis, fired his coach, Lane Kiffin early on, in effect for insubordination, usually something to be dealt with in the military, not pro football. Then again, these are the Raiders.

Kiffin was replaced by a tough-guy offensive line coach named Tom Cable, who was said to have sent one of his assistants to the hospital two weeks ago with what on Monday night was reported to be a punch but now is described as a shove into a cabinet.

"I wonder,'' mused cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, as curious as anyone, "if we'll be able to get the full story or not.''

Nnamdi wasn't serious. You never get to the bottom of anything with the Raiders, other than the standings. They're the North Korea of sports.

Information is obtained from mysterious sources that hide in the mountains of Pakistan, or maybe Canton, Ohio, and must be interpreted by the State Department to determine the validity.

Secrecy always has been as important to the Raiders as throwing deep. As Cable pointed out about this he-hit-him-no-it-was-an-enraged-sparrow-flying-amok incident, "It's an internal matter.''

Except that a report filed with the Napa police describes an unnamed 41-year-old Raiders assistant being treated for a jaw injury August 5 at Queen of the Valley Hospital, maybe two miles from the team's summer headquarters. The assistant is Randy Hanson, and no, he hasn't been around for a few days.

Seemingly everybody else has. The Raiders on Tuesday and Wednesday scrimmaged their Bay Area rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, the Niners coming some 100 miles north from their training site in Santa Clara. Dozens of Northern California journalists were in attendance, drawn by the regional confrontation as well as the quest for truth.

When Cable stood up at a podium that had been placed along one sideline, he faced nine television cameras, as many microphones and notepads and tape recorders reaching practically halfway to the Golden Gate Bridge. Presidential press conferences should be as well covered.

The time-consuming introduction involved Cable's announcements of players out with injuries and comments on whether facing the Niners, who the Raiders play Saturday night in a preseason game, was more beneficial than working against teammates. Finally, the issue was raised.

And as quickly dismissed.

"Nothing happened,'' advised Cable. Something certainly was happening at the moment, a couple of dozen journalists looking at each other skeptically.

"Listen,'' said Cable, "If you want to talk about this football team and the players on this football team, I'll talk to you all day. Otherwise I'm not getting into it.''

The NFL is getting to it. League spokesman Greg Aiello said there will be an investigation to determine the facts.

Someone in the organization did concede, "Something happened, but it's being blown out of proportion. It didn't go down the way it's being reported.''

Former NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah told Chris Mortensen of ESPN that a "reliable source'' said Hanson broke a facial bone when his cheek hit a cabinet after Cable flipped him out of his chair after Hanson spoke profanely of another Raider assistant, defensive coordinator John Marshall.

Cable hasn't informed the players of anything, and in that don't ask, don't tell ideology of the Raiders, they are not about to pester him for details.

"That's for you guys to talk about,'' said guard Robert Gallery. "I have no idea what happened, if anything happened. I could (sic) care less. I worry about winning games.''

Which, when you lose them season after season, is understandable.

Six years ago, during camp, linebacker Bill Romanowski punched teammate Marcus Williams and shattered Williams' jawbone. After filing a civil suit, Williams was awarded $340,000 in damages. That same season, 2003, a year after the Raiders went to the Super Bowl, head coach Bill Callahan referred to his squad after a losing game as "the dumbest team in America.''

Dumb, smart or in between, the Raiders certainly are the most contentious team in America.

"It's just another day around here,'' said running back Justin Fargas when asked how he is dealing with the latest episode. "Things wouldn't be normal if there wasn't some controversy.''

These days for the Raiders, they are very normal.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/08/19/raiders_controversy_dont_ask_dont_tell_96455.html
© RealClearSports 2009

SF Examiner: Tiger shows he’s human at PGA

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — Rocky Marciano was the exception. A heavyweight champ who never never lost a fight. Retired without a blemish. For a while there, we thought Tiger Woods was similarly perfect. We should have known better.

That’s the thing about sports, no matter what sort of competition. The favorites — the 49ers of the 1980s, the Yankees of the 1960s, the Lakers of the 2000s — usually win. But not always. And sometimes when they lose, we’re in disbelief.

As when Mike Tyson fell to Buster Douglas. Or when Dennis Eckersley gave up that home run in the bottom of the ninth in the first game of the ’88 World Series to a limping Kirk Gibson. Or when Ben Hogan was beaten by a driving range pro named Jack Fleck in the 1955 U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.

Or when Tiger Woods was stunned on Sunday by a Korean named Y.E. (for Yong-Eun) Yang in the PGA Championship back in Minnesota.

We love the underdog, except in golf and tennis. The world was right when Arnie and Jack were champions, when McEnroe and Connors were winners. Nor was it so bad around here when the Niners were picking up Super Bowl trophies.

But change is inevitable. Surprise is inevitable. No way 37-year-old Y.E. Yang could beat Tiger. Until he beat him. Then golf became just that much more intriguing.

There’s something called the Presidents Cup coming to Harding Park in October. It’s like the Ryder Cup, except instead of facing a European-British squad, the Americans meet an international team, players from Australia and South Africa and South America and, yes, Korea.

It isn’t the PGA or the Masters, it isn’t a major, but the Presidents Cup will give us Tiger-Yang, redux. We can only hope they play at least one match against each other, singles preferably.

You know this by now, Yang, who didn’t start playing golf until 19, just smacking balls on one of those multideck driving ranges in Seoul, is the first Asian male to win a major. Korea’s going mad, as well it should.

Now it has its own entry in the game’s pantheon. Hagen, Hogan, Y.E. Yang. Great play is not the exclusive possession of any nation.

A tough year for the Stanford guys. Tom Watson, at age 59, comes within a shot of winning the British Open. Tiger Woods, at age 33, holds or shares the lead for four days of the season’s last major and gets beat.

It was stunning. Yet it was overdue. If not this tournament, then some major. The gods of sport eventually make their presence known.

Nobody’s won three Super Bowls in succession, and yes in the mind’s eye we still cringe as Roger Craig fumbles Steve Young’s handoff in the 1990 NFC playoffs.

Something goes wrong. Or for the other side goes right. Favorites lose, underdogs win. Y.E. Yang was as big an underdog as we might imagine, which made the win all the more unbelievable. And captivating.

It may never happen again, but once was enough. We thought that like death and taxes, Tiger Woods with a lead in the final round of a major was a sure thing. We should have known better.

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.

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