Mike Singletary - He has no answers

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In 23 years of covering the 49ers, I've never seen a team so sour. Head coach Mike Singletary provides as little information as possible and that attitude has filtered down to his players. On Friday, the few players who were available in the locker room mostly declined to talk. One reporter said they asked five players for a comment and each one said no.

The continuing purgatory of playoff eligibility might be weighing on the team, because the 49ers are clearly not worthy of playoff consideration, in fact, this team is getting worse not better. On some level, Singletary, the coaching staff and the players must know this. As David White pointed out in his game story, the 49ers were close to upsetting playoff-caliber teams like Atlanta and New Orleans early in the season. Now they are getting blown out by good teams. Tampa Bay, Green Bay and San Diego have laid bad beatings on them.

And it's obvious the team has no answer for why this is happening.

"Well, there are a number of reasons why it happened," Singletary said of the latest flattening, a 34-7 humbling to the Chargers. "But (I'm) really not going to get into those things."

The tight-lipped Singletary dispensed little news. He did say that the broken hands of linebackers Takeo Spikes and Patrick Willis fared no worse after Thursday night. Also, Singletary declined to name a starter at quarterback for the game in St. Louis a week from Sunday. Troy Smith had the most prolific afternoon experienced by a 49ers quarterback since the days of Tim Rattay when the 49ers beat the Rams 23-20 in overtime on Nov. 14.

Smith completed 17 of 28 passes for 356 yards a touchdown and no picks. A week later after a muted performance in a 21-0 loss against the Bucs, he was sent back to the bench.

Singletary gave few hints where he was leaning. When asked if he was unhappy with Alex Smith's night against the Chargers, Singletary said, "I thought under the situation, Alex handled himself about as well as he could."

So you might think, Alex Smith will get another start because he had little time to throw the ball. Or you might think, Singletary is going back to Troy, and he's going to cushion the blow for Alex by saying he did the best he could under tough circumstances, thus relieving Alex of blame for benching him.

Whoever starts matters little. Yes, the 49ers are still in the playoff picture, but they are a lost bunch and a team that has no answers. All you have to do is ask them.

Posted By: Kevin Lynch (Email) | December 17 2010 at 04:17 PM