Blood is in the air, and the predators are ordering appetizers.
In the last two days, the Green Bay Packers have freed themselves of Mike McCarthy two weeks after Hue Jackson got shoved out the door, the Chicago Bulls just fed Fred Hoiberg to the shredder, and the Carolina Panthers fired a number of assistant coaches. In the last three weeks, four NHL coaches have gotten their cardboard boxes, and it is very definitely college football headhunting season (16 so far, plus retirements at Kansas State and Georgia Tech).
All this proves is that owners can spot a trend.
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SIGN UP HERE But in the Bay Area, the only team in danger of going to the cardboard boxes is Sacramento, where Dave Joerger was placed in danger because the organization has a history of taking hopeful results and stubbing them out like a bad-tasting cigarette with a front office political knife-fight as the justification.
The two professional football teams, which are galactic non-achievers this year, are safe from coaching changes though. The difference is, we have a pretty good idea when that will change.
For the Raiders, it’s at least three more seasons because (a) Jon Gruden will not become an issue for Las Vegas fans until after the first season novelty is completed. Before then, they can be as horrible as Gruden wishes them to be and he can maintain control because Mark Davis gave him the Shield Of Future Payments.
For the 49ers, though, it is next year, because a third year of non-contention will not go down well. This is not a patient organization in the face of failure, and as appealing as Kyle Shanahan’s name still is, they are 8-20 so far in his tenure, and 2-18 in non-Garoppolo games.
The magic in the name Garoppolo allows the fan base to maintain hope through alibi with the simple sentence, “If we’d been healthy . . .” So far the disaffected have amused themselves with bitching about defensive coordinator Robert Saleh but otherwise have soldiered on through the rebuilding process, comforted in a weird way by the unknown of what might have been had they not burned through Garoppolo, C.J. Beathard and Jerick McKinnon.
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But sub-.300 football is not sustainable over the long haul in the eyes of management, and Shanahan and general manager John Lynch will have to hit full-fledged and immediate home runs in this draft, players who make an impact that can be seen in the standings.
And no, this is not analogous to the Bill Walsh situation in 1980. He inherited a 2-14 team and spun out a 2-14 season in 1979, but tripled his win total in 1980 and doubled it again with a ring at the end in 1981. There was a clear upward progression throughout the process, and fan hope grew rather than diminished.
As we said, the fan base isn’t at the point of breaking yet, but the strain is starting to show on Shanahan. He was more animated and agonized on the sideline in Seattle Sunday than in any other game, as the torture of a slowly deteriorating season continued.
Their last strong performance against a good team was in Week 4 (a 29-27 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers). Since then:
# Loss at home to Arizona.
# Loss to the team that just fired its coach for losing to Arizona.
# Lost convincingly to the Los Angeles Rams.
# Lost at Arizona again.
# Beat the Raiders and created the Myth Of Nick Mullens.
# Lost at home to the New York Giants.
# Lost convincingly at Tampa.
# Lost convincingly at Seattle.
This season, which was a thoroughly lost year in the development of the Shanahan-Lynch era, is the end of the honeymoon. Next year, the margin for error finally shrinks to normal levels, and the year after that they will be the only game in town, NFL-wise.
Like we said, there is no danger for Shanahan or Lynch, but when the calendars get flipped, the luxury of being graded on the curve will expire.
Until then, we’ll still have the Kings.