Tim Kawakami thinks 49ers head coach Mike Nolan should be fired for fighting with Alex Smith. So do I. I think older people who are being paid to make sure younger people become all they can be should do their job. Twenty-three is very young. Mike should have acted like an adult. I'm sure Alex's mom agrees. But wait, didn't Alex's mom behave worse than Nolan? Yes, indeed. I think Alex's mom, Pamela Smith, board member at CVESD, should resign also, and pay back to the children of Chula Vista her share of the money paid to lawyers to cover-up her own
false allegations about what happened at Castle Park Elementary.
Click HERE for the original article.
Alex Smith vs. Mike Nolan goes nuclear: Will there be any survivors?
By Tim Kawakami
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 7:22 am in 49ers, NFL.
You’ve probably seen or heard about it already, and if you haven’t, and you’re a 49ers fan or care a tiny bit about the NFL or Alex Smith or Mike Nolan, you have got to read Smith’s jaw-dropping quotes slicing at Nolan in the Georgatos/Brown piece today.
The set-up: The 49ers last night announced what we all already knew–Smith will undergo shoulder surgery and is out for the season.
But here’s what Smith told Georgatos yesterday, before the announcement:
-Smith said he feels that Nolan has undermined him to his teammates and that Nolan has been spinning his own side of the story about Smith’s struggles to comeback from the shoulder separation.
That’s more than explosive… it’s basically setting up an either-him-or-me showdown.
I can’t see how Smith ever plays for Nolan after that. I couldn’t really see it a few days ago, but this makes it official. Done. That relationship is done.
There’s really no other option. Either Nolan or Smith… or maybe neither. Do the Yorks know this? Hello?
If the 49ers had active owners or a GM (aw heck, let’s not be naive–Nolan’s the GM and he’s the acting owner, too, as long as the Yorks are afraid to talk)… somebody would fix this.
Nobody has bothered to fix this. Nobody knows how. And Nolan Face of Franchise has agitated to make it worse, which makes him the most to blame.
Nolan has made it clear in his asides and blustering that, dating to about Sept. 30, he doesn’t like Smith any more.
Smith is now going on the record–and I give him total credit for not hiding behind double-talk, at the very least (more credit than I give Nolan)–to say that he really doesn’t like Nolan.
They used to be joined at the hip. Maybe it wasn’t the best tandem, but they were together. Now they’re separated more severely than Smith’s shoulder ever could be.
I’m going to write a column on this and have many more thoughts, but right off the bat, I’m wondering…
* Did Nolan call an NFL “code red” to blackball Smith in the 49er locker room? That’s what Smith is implying, and that’s the feeling I’ve picked up in the locker room the last few weeks.
It sure sounds like Nolan might’ve purposely tried to cut off Smith from his teammates by implicitly or explicitly saying that Smith is too soft to play through pain. Which is bad, no matter what player is in the focus.
Here’s what Smith said: “That was my biggest concern when he did that: I felt it was trying to undermine me with my teammates.”
Wow. And more from the Georgatos interview:
“I think if (my teammates) would have heard what I actually said out there that day, it wouldn’t have been an issue,” Smith said of the day a few weeks ago when he suggested that Nolan had botched the handling of Smith’s comeback.
“But all of a sudden Nolan spins it as I was making excuses for an injury. What I really felt like was, ‘Yeah, I tried to play on it. And that was my decision and obviously I wasn’t playing well enough.”
* If Nolan did that, and I believe he did, that’s not just petty, it’s self-defeating–who else is going to QB this team, Mike?
I mean, we know he loves Trent Dilfer, because Nolan loves inside LBs and, yes, Dilfer throws the football like an inside LB.
Wonderful. And all it did was set back the 49ers about three years.
* If Nolan gets his way and dumps Smith, whether it’s because of performance or personality, do you trust Nolan to pick the next QB?
Remember, he’s the one who picked Smith because Smith was so malleable… and now Nolan has grown to dislike the fact that Smith isn’t tough–well, Mike, how did you not notice that before? Or did you just have no clue what you were doing picking Smith in 2005 and investing $24M?
And Nolan picked Dilfer to be the back-up for the last two years. And Nolan didn’t like Aaron Rodgers because he wouldn’t do the silly drills that Smith all too willingly did for Nolan.
And Nolan didn’t trade for Charlie Frye when he was available. Or any number of other guys, because, a few months ago, he didn’t want anybody to compete with Smith, because Nolan has no clue about the QB position.
* Given his druthers for QBs in 2008, will Nolan go with Dilfer, Dilfer II and Dilfer Jr.?
Yes, Nolan doesn’t understand QBs, shouldn’t be allowed to choose them, and probably should get fired over this.
Not because Smith is a great QB prospect ruined by Nolan. Not because Smith is a towering leader of men.
No and no.
Nolan is at fault because he’s the one who selected Smith over better talents, he’s the one who propped him up and went great lengths to coddle him, and he’s the one who unfathomably decided that Smith’s Grade III shoulder separation was no big deal.
Nolan was also the one who refused to acknowledge that Smith’s play was being affected and Nolan, apparently, is the one who failed to be the bigger man–as a coach must be–in a standoff with his best-paid player.
Unbelievable. Ridiculous. Petty.
* Smith hasn’t covered himself with laurels during this whole thing, but he’s still young. He will be getting paid by the 49ers if they play him or not. He tried his best. His coaching staff failed him, however.
Now Smith is looking out for himself and his own reputation and trying to wound Nolan. I can’t blame Smith for that.
* As I’ve typed for weeks now, if anything was going to get the Yorks stirring and off of their scaredy-frozen-in-place-scaredyness… it’s Nolan messing up the QB.
That’s a huge investment they’ve got in Smith. Nolan is the one who made it for them.
Now Nolan has blown up Smith as much as you can blow up a young QB–with Smith’s help, I concede–and maybe that’s what gets the Yorks thinking… hmm, maybe Nolan isn’t a god among NFL coaches.
* The dumbest, dumbest thing I must keep repeating is the thought that Nolan only needs a strong GM to turn the ship right back to imminent greatness.
Folks, Nolan is proving again that coaching is what he does worst. A coach is supposed to handle his QB, especially if his best QB is fragile.
Nolan has no idea. You can blame Smith for this, and I’d guess that’s where 80% of 49ers fans will fall–he isn’t too tough, he isn’t much of a leader, he hasn’t been much of a QB.
But this is Nolan’s fault, in the big picture. The coach is supposed to stop things like this from happening.
And it should get him fired.
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