Let me recap. On the 49ers’ first series, when they scored their initial field goal, Smith called timeout when everyone on the offense seemed confused and lost. Just before the play that failed at fourth-and-one — a bad pass to fullback Moran Norris — Smith called a timeout. Confusion reigned again. On the drive that led to the final field goal — and a 6-0 Niner lead — Smith called his third and final timeout of the half and he also endured a delay-of-game penalty. The delay was a beaut. The Niners tried to go for a touchdown on fourth-and-one but couldn’t get their stuff together, were called for delay, got pushed back five yards and had to take the field goal. These are not the marks of a team that is game-ready, not marks of a team with state-of-art coaching.
The media asked Singletary about all those wasted timeouts and that weird delay of game.
“There were some problems with Alex’s helmet,” Singletary declared. “We had a similar situation last year. When the communication can’t come in and it’s spotty on the headset and you already can’t hear, it makes it very difficult. It’s not that the plays weren’t coming in. It’s that he wasn’t getting the plays because of technical issues. It happened a few times. We had to take timeouts because of the headset. It’s very frustrating. I guess it just happens to us.”
Wow. Singletary made it seem like a conspiracy — he claimed there was a similar situation last year; and he said, “I guess it just happens to us.” In this version, the mondo confusion on the field was an act of God, or an act of electricity or an act of betrayal by the Seahawks and none of it had anything to do with Raye or the other coaches.
OK, that was the official version for about 10 minutes. Then Smith spoke — please look for inconsistencies with the Singletary version: “Management issues like that we’ve got to figure out,” he said. “They hurt us. We called three timeouts in the first half, took a delay-of-game as well — we’ve got to get that sorted out obviously, definitely had our issues today. I’m trying not to use (timeouts) in the first quarter especially, but we had a couple of situations there — third-and-short, field position — and I wasn’t willing to take five yards. I thought I’d preserve it, take time out, collect ourselves and try to take advantage.”
How many times did his headset go out? (Hint to reader: this is a key question.) “The only time it was the headset issue, the clock rolled, they were late to spot the ball and I asked (referee) Mike (Carey) to bump the clock and he bumped it. Once the play clock runs down past 15 (seconds) your headset turns off and it never turns back on. He bumped it up to 25 and the headset never kicked back on and that was the one time, really the only time we had a headset problem.
“For whatever reason most of (the timeouts) occurred on third-and one, fourth-and-one, so yeah, whatever it is, deciding on what personnel would go in, deciding on if we would go for it, that decision has to be made. The refs aren’t waiting around to spot the ball based on what we’re going to decide to do. That clock’s rolling. You’ve got to make that decision if you’re going to go for it, then the play’s got to get called. You’ve got to have a call ready. That happens fast. It was all in key situations like that today when we had most of the problems. It’s frustrating, absolutely.”
It's not kindergarten. You don't treat everyone the same.J
