2010 San Francisco 49ers season in review

At 6-10 the San Francisco 49ers had a very disappointing year, especially given all the expectations that we had for them heading into 2010. Without a doubt this is the most disappointing 6-10 team, and they seem miles away from much more positive 6-10 teams like the Detroit Lions. They seemed to have a good plan; they drafted two offensive linemen and planned to make Alex Smith the man. That did not work, and Mike Singletary showed he was over matched as a NFL head coach. The season was a disaster and now this team must look to fix the things that went wrong.

Without a doubt the QB of the future is not presently on the roster. The Niners scored 305 points or 19.1 a game. That was good enough for 24th of the 32 NFL teams. Smith did complete nearly 60% of his passes, but had 10 INT’s to go along with his 14 TD’s. The running game behind him was able to average over 100 yards rushing, and yet no success came. Even with big additions along the O line the Niners gave up 44 sacks. That is part of the problem, but QB indecision also seems to be a factor.

The Defense was pretty average. They gave up 346 points or 21.6 points per game. That was good enough for 16th among the 32 NFL teams. Their take away differential was just -1, even with 15 picks thrown by the offense. They racked up 36 sacks and had 13 forced fumbles. OF course all of that means the real problems lay on the offense and with the seventh pick in the coming NFL draft they may be able to address just that.

I firmly believe that new head coach Jim Harbaugh is one QB away from a very good offense. He and the new Niners GM will have to decide if the draft it the best way to address that need, or if they should go after a veteran in free agency.

Related Links:

• San Francisco 49ers news and notes
• The Business of the NFL
• Joshua Lobdell.com