SANTA CLARA – Mike Singletary was at times philosophical, inspirational and testy during his Monday news conference. Mostly he struck a confident tone that his team's four-game losing streak soon would end.
"I think the most fortunate thing we have right now, the blessing that I would call it, is we have a coaching staff that is continuing to work their tails off putting our guys in position to win," he said. "We have eight games left in the season and we have to go out and do the very best we can to win those football games."
Singletary still believes – and that message is intended as much for his own players as it is for the 49ers' fans who, at the beginning of the season, had hoped the frank and forceful coach could deliver San Francisco's first winning season since 2002.
The reality is that the 2009 season is unfolding a lot like the lousy ones that preceded it. The 49ers typically have begun well, given hope that this could be the year they recapture the NFC West and then tumbled into an extended skid that ends all playoff aspirations and forces fans to think ahead to the following season.
Singletary hasn't lost hope yet. But he is on the precipice of a midseason collapse similar to the ones Dennis Erickson and Mike Nolan had before him. At 3-5, the 49ers find themselves searching for an offensive identity and trailing the Cardinals by two games in the division.
Their grade through the first half of the season? A shaky C-.
Read Matthew Barrows' archives and blogs at www.sacbee.com/sf49ers.
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