Depressed Fan Base

Nolan keeps spinning hope as others despair

49ers Nolan can't skirt blame for disastrous season

Reading through the clips today, one would think the 49ers were winless, Alex Smith had regressed to throwing an interception every play, Frank Gore was averaging 1.2 yards per carry and Kwame Harris couldn't defend 165 lbs of me without getting a holding penalty. Well needless to say only one of those things is true.

It was a given that this team was still rebuilding entering this season. However, they hung with a supposedly improved Cardinals team and beat the Rams in relatively convincing fashion, which meant they were speeding up this rebuilding process.

Well clearly parts of the rebuilding process are more advanced than others. In spite of the turnovers on Sunday, the offense is clearly much improved. Throw out the 53 yard run and Gore STILL averaged over 5 yards a carry against the vaunted Bears defense. Alex Smith connected on a beautiful pass to Antonio Bryant. Of course Kwame Harris continues to make mistakes. But things are clearly getting better, and with Vernon Davis on the mend, this offense could become downright explosive.

Defensively, it's a different story. Throw out the 2 wins and the defense has given up 40.4 points a game. They simply can not stop teams from scoring. That's not exactly the most insightful analysis, but it's the truth. However, more people should realize this was the case from Day 1. The team worked to improve the offense this past offseason and has clearly improved it. However, Julian Peterson and Andre Carter signed with the Seahawks and Redskins, respectively. As good as Manny Lawson has been, he's still just a rookie learning the system and what it takes to be a professional (Although I believe that 10 years from now he'll have had a better career than former college teammate and #1 pick Mario Williams, but that's a story for a different day).

The point of that tangent is that I fully expect the personnel department to do a full-scale rebuilding of the defense next spring and summer through the draft and free agency. After starting to build the offense, the 49ers had a defensive-heavy draft in 1981, which yielded the likes of Ronnie Lott, Eric Wright and Carlton Williamson. While a repeat of the '81 class might be tough, the opportunity is there.

I'm not saying the team can expect to go to the Super Bowl like the 1981 squad, but there could be tremendous improvement next year. People certainly don't have to drink the Kool-Aid, but I don't think everyone needs to jump off the bridge just because they got slaughtered by an excellent Bears team.