49ers Fire Offensive Coordinator Jimmy Raye

Added on Sep 27, 2010 by Jason Kearney in

NFL

Here’s a sobering reminder of how little ‘votes of confidence’ mean in the NFL–one day after San Francisco 49ers’ head coach Mike Singletary said that offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye would remain in that position for the rest of the season he’s been fired. Raye was wished well with his future endeavors on Monday morning and replaced with quarterbacks’ coach Mike Johnson.

San Francisco was considered a legitimate contender for the NFC West title before the season began but have struggled mightily on offense. At 0-3 the team presumably figured that they needed to do something now to shake things up if they are to have any chance of contending for the postseason. While in theory they’re facing the same 0-3 collar that the Dallas Cowboys fought so desperately to avoid on Sunday but in a weak division their plight isn’t quite as urgent.

The Niners have been hurt by a -5 turnover ratio and an inability to score points. They’re not quite so bad moving the football–they rank 20th in the NFL in total offense–but are only 31st in scoring offense putting them just ahead of the Carolina Panthers. Despite Singletary’s ‘vote of confidence’ on Sunday there was a lot of behind the scenes disagreement between coach and OC over how to fix the struggling unit.

A move to a new offensive coordinator definitely has a downside. Quarterback Alex Smith has struggled to find consistent success in the NFL and much of that can be attributed to a lack of continuity in the offensive coordinator he works with. Smith has now played for six different offensive coordinators in six years in the league and that’s obviously an issue when you’re trying to develop a young quarterback. At least he has some familiarity with quarterbacks’ coach Johnson so in theory at least the move will be a little easier to assimilate.

The Niners do have a schedule that sets up well for them to go on a run–they play at Atlanta this weekend but then have three winnable home games in four weeks (Philadelphia, Denver, Oakland) and a road game against the only team having more trouble scoring points than themselves, the Carolina Panthers.