This just came across me when after the Giants game, I was surfing the web in another browser tab and  NFL.com kept playing all the highlights from the NYG game and then all the pregame reports. One of them featured just a tiny bit of gametape from one-time-head-coach, 49ers M.DL. Jim Tomsula. Take a look at it from 2:00 on.

I dare you to look in his eyes and not want to get right in there and kill yourself some nice piece of quarterback. And then take this quote:

My family is not going to starve, and if my wife has stayed with me for the last 19 years, she’s not going anywhere. So I’m good.

So, once again, let me ask you: How can you not love the guy?

Well, he might just have a hand in how well our front seven is playing right now. But that is not what I want to discuss, I'm talking about the energy and the determination you can feel whenever our D takes the field. I can't help but think that a respectable amount of that comes from our DL coach. And I think he deserves a frontpage post just as much as I do (innocently looking Fooch's way...).

Hello there, NinersNation.

I have been relatively quiet during this whole Harbaughmania (meaning I haven't written a single word in any of the threads). My main reason for not doing so is my total lack of knowledge in terms of college football, which is even less present here in Germany than the NFL. So I didn't know what to think of Harbaugh and the craze surrounding him.

But my distance from the current events might not be such a bad thing after all, because it allowed me to come up with an unconventional solution to the whole mess.

Now that the Dolphins are apparently out of the picture, we seem to be competing with Stanford for Harbaugh's services. Why not let them pay 7m for one year of Harbaugh and sign him to a future contract starting in 2012 (which might be conditional, depending on a new CBA being in place)?

Stanford should be fine with this, because with Luck gone in a year, their window of opportunity seems to be closing anyway, and it would allow them to take one serious shot at a national championship with their proven Coach-QB tandem. They have to know they won't be able to keep him forever.

Harbaugh has the chance to win a title before leaving the College ranks, securing his desired NFL coaching gig in the process.

The Niners get the coach they want plus one year to prepare for his arrival, meaning they can stockpile 2012 picks during this year's draft in order to take a serious shot at #1 overall (Luck) next year. They're not on the hook for an insane amount of money in a year that (heaven forbid) might not even have football. We might even get Harbaugh at a (relative) discount for giving him the opportunity to win a championship before joining the 49ers.

Now, the catch would be to find a coach who is willing to fulfill a caretaker role waiting for Harbaugh, having to resign or take a step back after possibly having had a good season and reaching the playoffs. Good thing is: The one perfect guy for such a season is already on staff.

I'm convinced Jim Tomsula would do a great job, and by giving him the DL job on Harbaugh's staff plus an Assistant HC title (assuming Harbaugh would be fine with that), you would also address the lame duck effect that often arises among players when they know a coach will be leaving soon.

You would also have to find a caretaker QB for a year or (more probably) two. I'd say: Bring back Alex Smith. He's actually shown flashes of competence under Mike Johnson, he's been a class act professional during his tenure, and his experience with the pressure of being #1 overall might be invaluable to Luck.

Most probably, it won't happen this way. It's just too far-fetched. But still, I'd like to know what you think. Could it work?

Also, as a German, I don't have the vast amount of sports trivia knowledge most of you guys do, so I haven't got a clue if something like this has ever been done in the NFL or any other major league. Has it? And if so, how did it work out?

Hi everybody,

I'm new to this NN thing, so please cut me some slack if I'm commenting on something that might already have been extensively covered. But I couldn't find another thread that was dealing with this issue, so I decided to just give it a go (after all, the NN frontpage features the quote in question right above the link inviting you to join).

Here it is again:

"This is the last time our season ends in December." -- New 49ers president Jed York after announcing the signing of Mike Singletary to a long term deal.

Interesting thing about this bold prediction: Looking at the calendar, and assuming they keep having the Super Bowl on the first weekend of February, I would assume that the next three NFL regular seasons will probably not end in December.

Now, considering that in the NFL, "January" is usually used synonymously with "Playoffs", what we're looking at is probably nothing more than a funny coincidence - but I couldn't help but wonder if there might be more to it. After all, he could have said: "I believe we will go to the playoffs every year from now on." But he chose to go with this December thing.

Do you think he's already trying to make Singletarys job easier, to take some of the pressure off of him? Do you think he's just hedging his bets, so nobody can say he was wrong if there's no playoffs for SF in the immediate future? Or do you think there's actually nothing to it and I'm too anal about the whole thing? After all, I'm not a native speaker, and learning any language in school usually goes along with lots of analysis and interpretation and trying to read between the lines...

One more question: Is there a thread for newcomers to introduce themselves? I couldn't find one...