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With all the talk surrounding the National Football League (N.F.L.) lockout, the players union decertified and now the prospects boycotting the draft, I thought I’d leave that for another post and talk about my beloved San Francisco 49ers.

I can remember the incredible performance by the 49ers in Superbowl 24, it is the first game I remember watching. A lot has changed since then, where the 49ers were always expected to be in the hunt for the Superbowl, now they are just trying to get back to a winning team. It has been nearly a decade of futility filled with incredibly terrible coaching and poor personnel decisions. Much of the blame has been directed on their owners, the Yorks. Whereas the previous owner Eddie Debartolo Jr. did what it took to build a winner and remain a winner for 17 seasons with players like Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, John York has taken the inexpensive route and produced 8 consecutive seasons without a winning record.

In the last couple of years John has turned over most of the control of his team to his son Jed. Jed York is a brash young executive with the same passion for the game as his uncle Eddie had. His problem is he is young and inexperienced which led to him hiring, quite possibly one of the worst head coaches ever, Mike Singletary over two years ago. That coaching situation ended badly as has every other coaching situation since 2003. Still though he will have growing pains as an executive, I believe Jed will bring the 49ers back to relevance in the N.F.L. It all starts with the head coach he hired this year and his name is Jim Harbaugh.

When the 49ers hired him on January 7, 2011, it gave hope to a starved fan base longing for the good old days. 49ers fans can only hope this Stanford coaching product can be as good as his predecessor and mentor, Bill Walsh. In Harbaugh I see a smart, confident coach who truly believes he can turn this franchise around. I see a coach very knowledgeable in the x’s and o’s of football. He does inherit a team with quite a bit of talent, only a few pieces away from being a playoff caliber team and dare I say, Superbowl contender.

Bringing the score to you,

Nick