The 49ers Need a Metaphorical Forest Fire
Forest fires are public enemy No. 1 in California. Have you ever thought about any good reason to appreciate a wildfire? Even though you may not cherish it, wildfires are a decisive element of the life cycle.
The native tribes across the country always knew why the natural occurrence of wildfires is essential. The wildfires burn the low-level debris and branches of the trees. Not only that, the fire gives birth to a new generation of sequoia trees. The sequoia cones are serotinous. Once there is a fire in the forest, cones dry out, and new seeds come out. The fire creates a fresh layer of ash full of nutrients for the seeds to grow into trees.
Yet, in our view, every fire is imminent. The efforts to reduce the event of fires of any sort have worsened the problem. Now the forests are full of fuel. That is why fires are spreading fast at an uncontrollable rate across the United States.
What is the relation between forest fires and the 49ers?
Too much suppression of natural events can lead to a greater catastrophe.
Kyle Shanahan is into his 5th year as a head coach with a possibility of only one winning season to show as his results by January 2022. It is not only Shanahan who has an under .500 winning record. The 49ers have a 154-181-1 record in the regular season starting from the year 2000. The team has made it to the playoffs only six times in those 20 years. To give you some context to the stats, the Cincinnati Bengals have made it to the playoffs seven times during the same period.
The problem with the 49ers is that they are one of the worst teams in the NFL when you subtract the playoff years. The NFL is a league with parity. The 49ers used to dominate football before the 2000s. Who knew that the Y2K bug was not the biggest concern for a 49ers fan about the new millennium.
With the team sitting with a 2-3 record where the Super Bowl is a distant dream, pure arrogance dominates the front office's thinking. Where it is clearer than the waters of Lake Tahoe that it's time to start Trey Lance, Shanahan is still fixated on playing Jimmy Garoppolo.
Shanahan is wasting precious years which can be used to go through the struggles of the young quarterback. Instead, Shanahan is trying to salvage the season with Garoppolo for a playoff spot. But the consequences of that would be much more prominent in the next few seasons to come.
It would have been comforting if the development of Trey Lance was the only dilemma the team is going through. Brandon Aiyuk's situation gets uglier with every passing day. The team is hell-bent on establishing something that we do not understand.
Did anyone see Jalen Hurd play a snap during the regular season? This team is betting too much on injury-prone players and getting broken around as a result of that.
The reality is that Shanahan does not appears to be a movable object. Neither his opinions nor the position as the head coach goes without interrogation. Why does Shanahan deserve to be the head coach if the 49ers have another lackluster year with Jimmy Garoppolo under center? Is it worth making the playoffs with a quarterback who has no future with the team?
The 49ers celebrate the 75th year of their franchise existence this year. The team has won five Super Bowls, but nothing in the past 26 years. Unless they make better strides toward the future, the next 20 years will be no different. Difficult decisions need to be made to change the fortunes. The path to success requires getting rid of individuals who do not bring purpose to the team or focus on personal preferences.
The San Francisco 49ers are not an ordinary football team. Someone needs to ignite a metaphorical fire to burn the dead branches and start fresh.
