***UPDATE (1:24 p.m.): It’s official. The 49ers did not make any trades today. The trade deadline was 24 minutes ago. The NFL trade period re-opens in March 2010.***
* * *
There’s about 45 minutes to go before the window closes on NFL trades until March. And there’s nothing to suggest the 49ers will be making a deal.
But that does not mean they did not try – or weren’t at least open to the possibility to adding a player they believe can help.
I heard from a league source last night that the 49ers were in discussions with at least one team about a trade. Sorry for the tease, but I have no idea which player(s) they considered. Whatever was being discussed, it looks as if it won’t be happening. It seems as if those deadline talks hit a dead end.
The 49ers have pulled the trigger on just one trade-deadline deal since Scot McCloughan arrived on the scene in 2005 – and that was as a seller. That year, the 49ers dealt backup quarterback Tim Rattay to the Buccaneers for a sixth-round draft pick.
The 49ers discussed a trade with the Bills for cornerback Nate Clements in 2006. That trade went nowhere, but the 49ers signed Clements on the first day of free agency in 2007. And in 2007, the 49ers had Bears talked about a deal that would send linebacker Lance Briggs to
If the 49ers wanted to pull off a blockbuster, this would be the hour to do it. After all, the 49ers have two first-round picks in the 2010 draft. Based on the current standings, the 49ers would be picking anywhere from 18th to 23rd, while their other pick (formerly belonging to the Panthers) would be from 11th to 13th.
* * *
A couple points about my report yesterday in which coach Mike Singletary said there’s a “strong possibility” Michael Crabtree will be in the starting lineup Sunday:
–If Josh Morgan is OK with it, then Singletary does not have to worry about the reaction in the locker room. If the team wants to win, and Crabtree can help them, there is going to be no backlash. Morgan is the only one who loses something in this. And if he’s cool enough to help Crabtree learn the position, then the 49ers have already cleared the biggest obstacle.
***I had one other thought about what this move would tell the rest of the team: Singletary wants to get his best players on the field, thus giving the team its best chance to win games.***
–Crabtree does not have to learn the entire playbook before this game. All he has to do is learn the plays coordinator Jimmy Raye has included in this week’s game plan against the Texans.
* * *
Before the 49ers’ season opener, I asked Raye some questions about how he approaches his game plan:
How many plays do you include in the game plan?
Raye: “We have enough offense to take care of the contingencies, and each week is different based on the style of defense that we play, so the play number basically slides.
“You have a certain number of run down plays, first and 10, first- and second-down plays and then we have our third-down package. Then we have red zone and we try to pull as much as we can in similarity from the run down to the throw down to cut the volume, and then we have the red area plays that is designed specifically for defensive coverage in the red area. Then we have your short yardage, your goal line, your two-minute.
“The plays vary in terms of numbers based on the style of defense that you’re playing. Based on how we continue to accentuate our players and what they do best, but I couldn’t give you a concrete number of how many plays we would have in the plan. It basically would depend on, if you figure average, you’re going to get 70 to 72 snaps a game during a normal game and how many of those in 11 possessions based on the kickoff and the first half you are going to get 11 to 12 possessions most of the time without a sudden change. So all of that is calculated in, but basically it’s by design of what they do defensively that marries what we want to do offensively, and hopefully some of that will slide from one area to the other area.”
On whether he has always scripted his first plays:
Raye: “I’ve done it for as long as I’ve been coaching. I think Bill Walsh probably started it. I’ve coached with enough people that coached with him over the years that somewhere it became a part of what I started to do as a coordinator.”
On what his philosophy is game planning his offense against other teams:
Raye: “The generic answer would be, first of all, do what we need do best and what our people can do best. Then the development of that, we will try to exploit the weaknesses that we have that takes advantage of what we do, so it’s a twofold deal. We are always going to have a core group of things that we do that you have to stop because obviously we have been running it in practice and a lot longer than you have on Wednesday and Thursday, so you have to show us you can stop that and then we hope that the rest of what we do will take care of the weaknesses that they have, and give us a chance to exploit the weakness that they have and take advantage of them if we can.”
* * *