Thursday, January 10, 2008

Upon Further Review

After my Mike Martz rant was posted yesterday, I went out to one of the many fanzine blogs to check out what the rest of the 49ers Faithful were saying about the hire. The tone of initial posts was unhappiness, though not NEARLY as unhappy as I was.

But then, as people started to bring up different facts about Martz and his tenure in St. Louis and Detroit, I started to come around to the thought that maybe this wasn't such a bad hire after all.

Two things changed my mind. The first was that way that Martz has taken ordinary quarterbacks (or even sub-ordinary) and turned them into stars (see: Warner, Kurt and Bulger, Mark). Second, I had forgotten how Marshall Faulk went from being a top-10 NFL running back before Martz came to St. Louis to Hall of Fame caliber during the Martz years. Marshall AVERAGED over 2,000 yards from scrimmage per season under Martz until Father Time finally took him down. Can you imagine Frank Gore as "Marshall Faulk"? I can. Of course, trying to see Alex Smith or Shawn Hill as "Kurt Warner" takes a little work...

But I'm still not sold on how much impact Martz can have on the team because of the utter lack of talent at the wide receiver position. Until we pick up some WRs, we're going to continue to be a futile offense.

Oh, Mr. Martz. I apologize for my rant of yesterday. I promise to give you the benefit of the doubt from now on.

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