Addressing the media for the first time since a Yahoo! story said the 49ers had a “tepid trust” in their coaching staff, among other unflattering details, coach Mike Singletary, quarterback Alex Smith and offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye dismissed the report as false today.
Singletary seemed particularly annoyed that a source spoke with Yahoo! reporter Jason Cole. Singletary said he didn’t think the source was still employed by the 49ers.
“The article is not factual, No. 1,” Singletary said. “No. 2, I don’t want to spend my time trying to find a rat. In time, the smell will come … If the rat is in the building, it will show in time. But I’m not going to go try to find him.”
The Yahoo! article said players resented Raye’s tendency to blame them
if things went wrong. In addition, it said Raye’s play calls were often
late in arriving and could be “garbled.” Due to those issues, the
article said several players spoke with Singletary in the offseason to
complain about the situation.
“I’m not going to lie. I found most of the article pretty ridiculous,”
Smith said. “Stuff that I had absolutely no idea about. Stuff that was
news to me — that players were going to coach Singletary this offseason
and had these issues? That’s something I certainly had no idea about
and I meet with Singletary pretty often. So, no idea. I was completely
unaware of. You can ask the rest of my team, but as far as I’m concerned
completely coming from nowhere. False.”
Raye was scheduled to meet with the media Friday. But he followed
Singletary to the podium today, presumably to deal with the controversy
swirling around him as soon as possible. On Monday, Singletary said Raye
understood that he had to “do a better job of getting (plays) in” after
a series of late-arriving play calls forced the Niners to burn three
timeouts and take a delay-of-game penalty in the first 24 minutes of
Sunday’s 31-6 loss to the Seahawks.
In an odd scene, Singletary, about five feet away from Raye, sat on the
ground during his offensive coordinator’s 17-minute meeting with the
media. At one point, he laid down, propping himself up with one elbow.
When Raye said it was Singletary’s decision to have quarterbacks coach
Mike Johnson get involved in the play-calling process, Singletary raised
his hand.
“I think I speak with good diction,” Raye said. “I don’t garble
anything. I think I express myself pretty well. So whoever Yahoo! is,
maybe he should come call plays.”
Cole, the Yahoo! reporter, was told of the Niners’ comments today, “That’s fine,” he said. “I stand by what I wrote.”
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