Sadler’s premium meats are perfect for tailgating on Saturday, for grilling out at home on Sunday, or for when you are hosting a group of friends, or even just the family, on Monday night.

With a variety of delicious choices (beef, pork, ribs, turkey, brisket, and more) and availability at grocery stores throughout the U.S., Sadler’s meats are the tasty, convenient choice when you want to watch the big game and eat well while you’re doing it.

Visit the Sadler’s Smokehouse website: Sadler’s Smokehouse

——————–

On the one hand, we have a game here of mighty proportions.

Both the 49ers and Chargers can give the leaders of the painfully average divisions they’re currently trailing another reason to take a glance in the ol’ rearview.  Then again, it’s not like anyone’s running away in these races.

There shouldn’t be too much advance planning going on, even if that planning should be more towards extended stays on beachfront properties rather than football games.

And with that dumb joke, let’s address the unavoidable truth that something is screwed up with the NFL playoff system this year.

In San Francisco’s case, I ranted about their situation a few week’s ago, when it appeared the Niners were anything but essential to the NFC playoff picture.  Since that Monday nighter, they’ve won two out of three and jumped back to a game behind co-division leaders Seattle and St. Louis (their overall importance in the grand scheme of the playoffs still remains in question, but that goes for the division as a whole).

Anyway, the NFL playoff system:  Yes, there probably will be a 9-7, or 8-8, or maybe even 7-9 team in the postseason this year.  And yes, there will be good football teams with better records and merit that won’t make it.  That might not seem fair to them, but saying it’s not fair, or good for the game, or any other soapbox of choice three times and clicking one’s heels won’t change anything this season.  And the fact is, every team left on the outside will have at least one regrettable loss to their name (like this one) at season’s end, at least one point where fortunes could have been changed.

It will not be the faults of the respective winners in the AFC and NFC West that they qualified for the playoffs.  Heck, maybe after a shot or two of truth serum, or tequila, they’d even admit they think it’s a little strange themselves.  But it’s the way things played out this year.

So yes, it’s going to suck for a few teams who were believed to be deserving or better prepared for the postseason. But if every team had a few collective shots of tequila, they’d probably admit there were a few spots along the way in which they could’ve changed the outcome for themselves, for the better.

Now, on the other hand, we have no idea if this game will mean anything at all.  Both teams have at least one more road contest awaiting them, and both have played away games (San Francisco: 1-5 on the road, San Diego: 2-4) like the hotel pillows are made of brick and the shampoo maple syrup.  Remember where they call home and it isn’t hard to imagine why they’d prefer to stay.

By virtue of luck, they each drew their division’s weakling in the final week of the season.  San Francisco gets the Arizona-how-have-they-won-four-games-Cardinals at home while San Diego goes to Denver to play whatever Broncos haven’t yet emotionally checked out or scurried onto the injured reserve list.  Because their divisions allowed them to stay in the race, both squads, starting Thursday night, can do a lot of good for themselves.  And based on the principle of finishing off a foe when the opportunity presents itself, which their counterparts have failed to accomplish to this point, you get the feeling one of them is going to capitalize.

The only pattern displayed by these dwellers of vacation destinations is that they take the playing-on-a-week-to-week-basis thing to extreme levels.  One would be foolish in attempting to take something from a previous game and apply it towards a possible future trend.  The Playoff Machine still has too many toss-up toggles to select for these teams.  Even the Chargers’ annual rite of passage, playing catch-up in December, went by the wayside in their loss at home to Oakland a few weeks ago.  And what can we believe in, I ask you, if not that?

There have been no promises kept in the NFL this year; the Chargers and 49ers are poster children for that.  Just because we don’t know or find it impossible to predict where they’re going, however, doesn’t make this a game with no meaning.

It just makes this Thursday night game a game in whic we must be patient, remember what happened, and then, when the regular season draws to a close, look back with our best hindsight vision and say, “Of course that’s what the San Francisco-San Diego game meant!” Maybe it’ll be the division title, maybe the beginning of the final, long overdue, end.

With three weeks left, it’s still too soon to know.  With these teams, we probably won’t be allowed to know if anything worth printing on a T-shirt comes from this season until the bitter end.  They may not be consistent or deserving enough for your tastes, but the way the system works as of today, they are relevant.  I suppose there are worse things than uncertainty.

49ers-Chargers Prediction: Chargers 30, 49ers 17.

**********

San Francisco 49ers at San Diego Chargers

• 49ers-Chargers Date: Thursday, December 16
• 49ers-Chargers Kickoff Time: 8:20 pm
• 49ers-Chargers TV Network: NFLN
• 49ers-Chargers Announcers: Bob Papa, Joey Sunshine, and The Brightest Football Mind in the History of Football
• 49ers-Chargers Spread: Chargers -8.5
• 49ers-Chargers Over-Under: 44.5

**Rivers screengrab courtesy of http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/
**Tequila cookies via Flickr

Twitter: twitter.com/griffingotta

Email: griffingotta@gmail.com

Sadler’s premium meats are perfect for tailgating on Saturday, for grilling out at home on Sunday, or for when you are hosting a group of friends, or even just the family, on Monday night.

With a variety of delicious choices (beef, pork, ribs, turkey, brisket, and more) and availability at grocery stores throughout the U.S., Sadler’s meats are the tasty, convenient choice when you want to watch the big game and eat well while you’re doing it.

Visit the Sadler’s Smokehouse website: Sadler’s Smokehouse

——————–

This game is nothing.

The outcome of this game changes nothing.

The game-changing play that will take place sometime in this game changes nothing.

As I sit here on the Friday after Thanksgiving, the fact that I already put any thought into this game at all, when I should be completing my marathon viewing of Season Two of “The OC” (don’t judge me), makes me a little sad, a little worse a person, and probably, drives me a little closer to insane.

But not as sad, worse, and insane as you, if you so choose to watch this game. Not even the NFL’s Web site can muster a reason in favor of this game’s usefulness:

Under “the storyline” section:

“The team that has dominated the NFC West the past few years meets the team that was supposed to win it this season — with absolutely nothing at stake.”

And under the “why you should watch” section:

“It’s Monday night. There’s nothing else on. And Kurt Warner is off “Dancing With The Stars” now, so maybe he sneaks into the Cards’ locker room and dons a jersey?”

This game forced the person charged with previewing this game for NFL.com to make a “Dancing With The Stars” reference; another unforgivable offense that can be charged to this pile of garbage that even a garbage man wouldn’t pick up.

***Major aside, so as to avoid talking about this game***
During previous summer months in my life, I have worked as a garbage man, riding on the back of a truck, picking up all of the shit that people throw away. One could go deeper than that into the experience of throwing garbage, but for a one sentence explanation, that’s probably it.

It’s a job that can bring a person many lows in a day with few chances to experience exhilarating highs, unless someone gives you a can of soda or you find a life-sized stuffed animal, in my case a bear, hanging out on the curb. Still, there is a certain honor to being a garbage man, or, to paraphrase David Simon, “sharing a dark corner of the American experiment.”

Of course, the dark corner Simon refers to is the one a homicide detective inhabits, and this isn’t to compare the two professions: a detective’s job is all-encompassing; it follows them home and affects actual people. A garbage man’s work is at times terrible, always smelly and alternately physically and mentally tiring, but with enough stops under one’s belt they all begin to blend together and into one big memory that is much simpler to repress. That’s what I tell myself, for my own sake, at least.

Ahem.

This is all to say this: If there is a pile of garbage that doesn’t get picked up, it is either too big or too horrible, with tetanus visibly hanging in the air above it, for two human beings to fathom lifting, much less even touching (maggots are a good sign for this), in an attempt to get it into the back of a garbage truck. At that given time, this pile has to be one of the more truly crappy things in the world.

And for this game, this primetime slotted-game, at this point in the season, with so many teams in either conference still in the playoff race, with so many chances for an interesting storyline, to be played between two teams with no chance for anything in a division whose winner will unspeakably carry that irrelevance on into the playoffs is a huge, ripe, bags-ripped-open-with-fish-guts-pouring-out-and-rusted-metal-spikes-pointing-every-which-way pile of garbage that no sports fan should ever be asked to pick up. It is, at this time, one of the more truly crappy sporting events in the world.

So if you plan on watching, if you plan on preparing to enter the dark corner of American football, please spare me. In the same light that you probably do not want to know the details of what goes on in the back of a garbage truck, please do not let me know how it goes.

Prediction (?).

Any other plan that could be made on Monday Night, 1. Monday Night Football, 0.

[Editor's note: And for those actually interested in this game, I provide the information below...]

San Francisco 49ers at Arizona Cardinals

• 49ers-Cardinals Date: Monday, November 29
• 49ers-Cardinals Kickoff Time: 8:30 pm
• 49ers-Cardinals TV Network: ESPN
• 49ers-Cardinals Announcers: Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski, and Jon Gruden
• 49ers-Cardinals Point Spread: 49ers -1
• 49ers-Cardinals Over-Under Odds: 39.5

**OC photo courtesy of http://www.theocshow.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=471
**Garbage photo courtesy of http://www.boston.com/travel/blog/2008/05/

Twitter: twitter.com/griffingotta

Email: griffingotta@gmail.com

Mike Singletary replaces Mike Nolan, who was fired yesterday in the wake of reports that next week’s game against Seattle would be his last. Ownership apparently had wanted to wait until before the bye week to make the coaching change, but Nolan spoke with them and it was decided that a decision should be made immediately.

Mike Nolan ends his 49ers tenure with an 18-37 record, and the ignominy of having chosen and supported failed #1 draft pick Alex Smith. Ultimately, Nolan’s decision to pass on Aaron Rodgers, who is now seeing success with the Green Bay Packers, may have sealed his fate in the eyes of management.

Now, for many fans of the Chicago Bears and the Baylor Bears (Singletary’s alma mater) I would presume, the San Francisco 49ers will become a secondary favorite team. Few NFL players are as beloved by their fan base as Mike Singletary is by fans of the Chicago Bears. Among the many highlights of SIngletary’s illustrious playing career was the 1985 season that saw him lead the Bears to a 15-1 regular season record and Super Bowl victory. That season, Mike Singletary was name NFL Defensive Player of the Year when he recored 109 tackles, 3 sacks, and defended 10 passes. The 1985 Bears defense is widely considered to be the greatest single-season defense in NFL history. (Just don’t tell that to Ray Lewis, or he might stab you….and then obstruct justice.)

For Mike Singletary, this is obviously a huge opportunity. Singletary has interviewed for a few head coaching gigs over the past couple of seasons. Widely renowned for his leadership ability, the biggest question mark about Mike Singletary has been his coaching experience. He reentered the NFL in 2003 as a member of the Baltimore Ravens coaching staff, working there with Mike Nolan. IN 2004, the 49ers hired Mike Nolan, who brought Singletary with him to the Bay Area to be linebackers coach and Assistant Head Coach.

Currently, Mike Singletary has no experience as either a coordinator or head coach at any level. However, this is not necessarily a prerequisite for success if he has experienced coaches working with him. Singletary does have Mike Martz as his offensive coordinator; and obviously Mike Martz has plenty of experience. Something tells me he will have even more control over the offense than he did previously, which should make the “evil genius” and former St. Louis Rams coach very happy.

But no one really cares about the San Francisco 49ers on Midwest Sports Fans, we care about Mike Singletary. Was there a more intimidating sight in football than looking across the line of scrimmage, seeing #50 in the menacingly dark blue uniforms, eyes wide open, with a stream racing out his nose and mouth with each breath? I mean, if you’re a quarterback, how do you focus on reading a defense or calling a play? I wish I had been older then (I was 4) when the 1985 Bears D was at their dominating best, because they are a sight to see from the highlight reel. And Mike Singletary was the leader.

Now he is the leader of a new team, the San Francisco 49ers. It will be interesting to see if any of Buddy Ryan’s 46 principles find their way into the 49ers defensive attack. Singletary does have a young, fast, high-character linebacker in Patrick Willis to build around. If you’re Patrick Willis (which means that you would be an absolute beast), can you think of any better situation to be in than having Mike Singletary as your position coach during your first two years in the NFL, and then becoming your head coach?

The 49ers have two guys on their team that I have always really liked, both from a fantasy football perspective and just because of their stories and ability to overcome adversity in their lives: Patrick Willis and Frank Gore. And now, even though I am not a Bears fan, I’d like to see them do well with Mike Singletary as their head coach. You don’t have to be a fan of the Chicago Bears to have been and be a fan of one of the most hard-hitting and high-character players to ever play in the NFL.

Mike Singletary is the interim coach, but make no mistake: the 49ers want him to be the full-time head coach. The rest of this season is basically an audition for Mike Singletary, who many smart NFL people have pegged for a long time to be a good candidate for a head coaching position due to his extraordinary leadership ability. Surround him with solid X’s and O’s coaches, and Singletary could be on the path to a very successful head coaching career in the NFL. Good luck from Midwest Sports Fans, Mike Singletary. You are one of the legends of Midwest sports now and forever. Something tells me that after I post this, there won’t be anyone disagreeing with me.

[tags]mike singeltary, chicago bears, san fracisco 49ers, mike nolan, nfl, football[/tags]