All year I have been cautiously optimistic about the 49ers chances of reaching the playoffs and finally taking the next step forward towards becoming a championship caliber team, but after these four straight losses I am going to have to change my tune. Granted there have been a number of injuries to key positions; Frank Gore Missed time, two starting tackles on a shaky offensive line are out, and their top two corner backs coming into the season are out. That is a lot for most teams to over come much less a team that only went 7-9 last year. But at the same time the good teams find ways to win and every team in the NFL has to deal with injuries, that being said a team with playoff aspirations needs to beat a team that is 1-6 going into the game.

The 49er offense is closer to being a solid unit than most people think. Michael Crabtree, Vernon Davis, and Frank Gore are all very good players when healthy and on top of that Glen Coffee, Josh Morgan, and Joe Staley are good players who are coming into their own as their careers progress as well. I think people would be surprised how well this offense could run if they had a Phillip Rivers caliber quarterback behind center, add a couple of starting caliber guards and this could be a potent offense. Even if the offensive line was just healthy I think there is a noticeable difference in how well this unit runs, but the major component that is missing is a quarterback. It has been said many times before that this is a quarterbacks league and its hard to argue with that, the only team with an elite level quarterback that isn’t doing well is Green Bay, who has a horrible offensive line and defense, and they are still 4-4 in a fairly tough division. If the 49ers can find their answer at quarterback, whether it ends up being Nate Davis, picking up Jason Campbell in free agency, or drafting a quarterback with one of their two first round picks in this coming draft it would go a long way towards getting this team on the right track.

Some people may have noticed the omission of Alex Smith from that list of potential future QBs. The reasoning is simple, he is not a starting QB. In his fifth year he is around where a second year QB should be, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see any of the QBs taken in last years first round do better in their second year than Smith is in his 5^th. However, keeping in the vein of QBs the Niners currently have on their roster, I would like to see how Nate Davis does in a game before the Niners go about drafting another QB. Davis played as well as any rookie QB did this preseason, granted it is preseason and Davis is supposed to be a QB that would take time to translate his skills to the NFL game, but why draft a QB next year if we have one that could be ready to start by the middle of next season anyway?

The weakness of the defensive unit is their age in the secondary. Nate Clements, Walt Harris, Dre Bly, and Michael Lewis average just over 31 years old this season and none of them have successors waiting in the wings. Fortunately Shawntae Spencer has started to play much better this year, but he is still no more than a number two corner. Dashon Goldson is young at 25 years old but he hasn’t been consistent in coverage as of yet although this is his first year starting to be fair. The other current weakness is defensive line, but exceptional 3-4 defensive linemen are very hard to find and the Niners already have one in Justin Smith, the rest are young, developing, and already solid players so although they might not over power many offensive lines with just their down linemen, the combination of them and the Niners good linebacker group make it a solid front seven all around. A pass rush specialist to line up either at defensive end or take Parys Haralson’s spot at starting right outside linebacker could help this defense as well, but I wouldn’t make that as high a priority as getting good young talent in the secondary.

The number one thing that can help the Niners in my opinion is a year of continuity. Let Singletary have another draft of drafting his type of player, give Jimmy Raye another year with the offense (something a 49er offensive coordinator hasn’t had in half a decade) and possibly some strong GM work from McCloughan to pick up a solid free agent or two and hopefully the 49ers can come out of it all with a bit more focus and some sort of team identity.