A quarterback switch for the 49ers

 

Pro football is a fickle business. Shaun Hill won the San Francisco 49ers’ starting quarterback job with strong performances during the latter half of the 2008 season. He prevailed over Alex Smith in the exhibition season this summer and the team got off to a fast start.

But they played terribly against the Atlanta Falcons. Even after their bye week, the Niners were listless against the Houston Texans in the first half Sunday. So Coach Mike Singletary made a change, inserting Smith into the lineup.

And pow! The Niners scored three touchdowns and were seemingly on their way to a fourth when the Texans intercepted the ball to preserve a 24-21 victory.

Now today comes word that Smith will start the next game. The starting job is his to lose.

And the way things go in the NFL, he will lose the job eventually – to Hill or to some other quarterback who comes along.

I was lukewarm to Smith when the Niners picked him up as a top draft pick a few years back. He was inconsistent whereas with Hill at the controls, the 49ers seemed to move the ball. Hill isn’t flashy, but the team won more often than not.

I give Smith tremendous credit. He has not sulked or demanded a trade or trashed his organization — as so many multimillionaire malcontents do. He’s kept his focus, and he was ready when called.

Even more, he delivered.

In the brutal world of the NFL, that matters most.

Brett Favre exacts a measure of vengeance on the Packers

We doubted his word. We doubted his motives. But as the Minnesota Vikings have surged to a 4-0 record this season, no one doubts that Brett Favre has the drive and the talent to succeed for his new team. Favre shone again Monday night as the Vikes defeated his old team, the Green Bay Packers, 30-23.

I’m betting the TV ratings for the game were high as curious Americans tuned in to watch Favre attack the Pack. Although he wore his familiar No. 4 jersey, it was purple instead of the usual Packers’ green and gold. Didn’t matter. Favre performed like a man half his 40 39 years of age.

I wasn’t surprised. A week ago, I watched Favre shred the San Francisco secondary on a last-minute drive that he punctuated with a 32-yard touchdown strike to the end zone with 2 seconds left.

I lived in Wisconsin during the Bart Starr coaching era when the Packers were awful. At the time I appreciated the Packers for their heritage but could not fully embrace the team. In recent years the Pack returned to some measure of glory, and Favre deservedly got much of the credit.

The Monday night loss to the rival Vikings will be even more bitter for Packers fans, who rightly felt jilted and betrayed when Favre “retired” only to sign last season with the New York Jets. His outrageous, teasing courtship dance with Vikings over the summer makes his performance with them in this first quarter of the season even more remarkable.

Call him what you will. But Brett Favre has delivered on his promise.

The NFL goes ‘pink’ to fight breast cancer

A tip of the cap to the National Football League, which is raising awareness about breast cancer this week with its “Crucial Catch” campaign. In partnership with the American Cancer Society, the league is encouraging women – especially those over the age of 40 – to get yearly screenings to detect breast cancer as early as possible. As part of the campaign, NFL coaches are wearing caps with pink bills (as shown by Bears coach Lovie Smith in this Chicago Tribune photo) and the players are wearing pink gloves. I thought I saw a few pink shoes flashing by in the Oakland-Houston game, at least on the Texans. The Raiders weren’t moving very fast.

Woe unto thee, Raider Nation

It’s not easy being silver and black. The Oakland Raiders, one of the most intimidating and successful franchises in the history of professional football, are reeling. On so many Sundays the past few years, the Raiders have been outplayed and outclassed. Since 2002, when they last won an AFC title and appeared in the Super Bowl, they haven’t posted a winning record. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I checked the stats — the Raiders haven’t won more than five games in any season since.

With the way the team has played this season, six victories seems like a tall order.  A colleague who has season tickets (and writes a fine Raiders blog) said the fans in the Black Hole at the Oakland Coliseum relentlessly booed quarterback JaMarcus Russell on Sunday as the Broncos embarrassed the Raiders 23-3.

This is pitiful football. My Raiders’ credentials are a bit tenuous, but I have enough of a connection to justify a few observations. Growing up in the snowbound Eastern time zone, I watched a lot of Raiders games from the West Coast after the Browns wrapped up. The Raiders in those days were Daryle Lamonica and Fred Biletnikoff, Ken Stabler and Cliff Branch, not to mention scores of outstanding defensive backs and linemen both sides of the ball.

When the team returned to Oakland from exile in Los Angeles, I lived in Alameda – where Al Davis & Co. set up their corporate home. My kids’ high school manned concession booths at home games as a fund-raiser. While I saw little action on the field, I poured plenty of beers for the fans. The early years in Oakland Phase Two were mediocre, but the team had passionate backers who knew better times lay ahead.

For maddening contrast, today’s Raiders fans need only look across San Francisco Bay to see how the 49ers are resurrecting their program. I wish I had a solution for the Raiders, who for so many years found a way to win. Right now, the fabled “Commitment to Excellence” has a hollow ring to it.

The NFL draft 2009, and the new look of the Detroit Lions

 

Matthew Stafford

The Detroit Lions are feeling mighty pleased today. They chose Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford as the No. 1 pick of the NFL draft. He’s shown at right, sporting the new Lions’ logo on his cap.

The Lions made a big fuss the other  day in announcing the logo, which is supposed to represent a fiercer look. Maybe, maybe not. They couldn’t do any worse than they did last season with the old logo.

As for Stafford, I know nothing more than that he was touted as the catch of the draft. All I can say to that is, “Good luck, Mr. Stafford, and good luck, Detroit.”

My years as a football fan are littered with busted first-round QBs. Exhibit A is Mike Phipps, for whom the Cleveland Browns gave up wide receiver Paul Warfield in a move stunning in its stupidity, even by Cleveland standards (See, Colavito for Kuenn). Farther west and more recently, the San Francisco 49ers put all their draft eggs in the Alex Smith basket, and that, to say the least, has not been a picnic.

If any NFL team wants to pay me what Stafford is reportedly getting – $41 million, give or take a few thou – my services are available. But I’d settle for $1 million and a couple of ball caps.

A salute to John Madden

John Madden announced today that he’s retiring from the broadcast booth, and that was major news.

Madden is one of the greatest football broadcasters of all time, and I’d rank him among the greatest sports broadcasters overall. His energy, enthusiasm and wit pair wonderfully with his knowledge of football and life at large.

He announced his retirement on KCBS radio in San Francisco, whose listeners over the years have received an extra helping of his analysis and larger-than-life persona. In my 10 years in California, I’ve listened to him hundreds of times. He never has failed to be entertaining, and he’s often more engaging on subjects other than football.

While the world knows him for his network broadcasts, his eponymous line of video football games and as coach of the Oakland Raiders, fewer people know that he played college football at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif. My daughter and son-in-law are proud Poly graduates, and I’ve visited that terrific campus many times. Coincidentally, I was there earlier this week and snapped a photo of these caps with my iPhone.

So here’s a tip of the Mustang cap to John Madden. I wish him happy travels for the rest of his days.

The Cleveland Browns and a brand new NFL season

The Thursday night game between the Redskins and Giants notwithstanding, today marks the real kickoff to the 2008 National Football League season. In celebration, I took my natty corduroy Cleveland Browns cap out into the warm California sun for a morning portrait.

Classic Cleveland Browns corduroy cap

I call this a classic Browns cap because it dates not from the present franchise but from the last years of the old Browns, the team that the sinsister Art Modell carted off to Baltimore to become the dead-to-me Ravens.

The original Browns started in the All American Football Conference that was folded into the NFL in the early 1950s. My early childhood centered on baseball, and football didn’t enter my consciousness until early grade school. In fact, my earliest pro football memory is of the day of the 1964 championship game in which the Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts (another team that would ultimately and appallingly be wrenched from the hearts of its fans). The game was blacked out on television in Cleveland, so my dad sent me to the attic to move our antenna around so we could catch the game on a Toledo station.

The demise of the old Browns roughly coincided with my move to California, where I’ve since attached my primary allegiance to the San Francisco 49ers and, given a few beers and the right opponent, the Oakland Raiders. I have not bonded with the new Browns, but should they advance to the playoffs, I’ll be pulling for them hard. And yeah, I want them to crush the Dallas Cowboys today.

In the meantime, I reserve my Browns cap mainly for the winter months, always hoping for the delightful contrast of white snowflakes settling on its rich brown bill.