Week 17 - Cardinals vs. 49ers

What to say? Should I admit how uninvolved I felt while watching yesterday's game? It's like watching a suspense movie after knowing how it ends, or reading a book already knowing how things turn out - there wasn't much to root for. It was only after the game and reading how excited the players were to get the victory that I was happy about the win.

(Interim) head coach Jim Tomsula brought joy to the team, something that had been missing for years. Joy as in playing the game. He was smiling, players were smiling, even before the outcome of the game had been decided. And the Arizona Cardinals were in the same boat as the Niners: record-wise, disappointing season-wise, etc. So it's not like they had that much more reason to play sullen yesterday.

As far as draft position goes, the victory only meant losing two spots, from the 5th overall pick to the 7th, so I do believe that the win meant more to the team than what might have been gained in April's draft. Trading up from 5th to the 1st overall pick is about as daunting as up from the 7th pick - it could well be impossible anyway. If QB Andrew Luck declares for the 2011 draft, I'm part of the vast majority that believes that he will be picked first. After that, teams just have to pick wisely; one never knows if the 7th pick will have a much better NFL career than the 5th pick.

And much more important to the future of the 49ers is the hiring of their next general manager and head coach. I'll just have to trust the Niners ownership and brain-trust to make the right decisions. And the jury, so to speak, will be out on them for a few seasons anyway. We'd all like the next Bill Walsh to be found and hired, but even he had a couple of disappointing win-loss records to begin his career as the 49ers head coach. I wonder if in this day and age of the Internet, Bill Walsh would have gotten another season after going 2-14 and 6-10 his first two seasons. Would Eddie DeBartolo, Jr. have been seen as such a genius for hiring Walsh in the first place? What if Walsh hadn't been able to draft Joe Montana because some other team had beaten him to the punch?

Thank goodness things worked out from top-to-bottom back then! Now... can it happen again?