The Press Democrat has generously upgraded our blog platform and put us on a level with the great Matt Maiocco. From now on check out my wise guy UCLA son Iggy and me by clicking http://blog.pressdemocrat.com/cohn. We promise to be pertinent all the time and impertinent most of the time.

-- Lowell

There was a moment at his introductory press conference when Mike Singletary got going. He used to be a motivational speaker and now he was on a roll.

He was saying how Mike Nolan had built the foundation for the team and as Singletary's voice rose, he intoned, "You take a step back and go, 'Wow,' I'm going to continue to help Mike (Nolan) build this, and wherever God leads, that's where I'm going to go."

I'll skip a few sentences and come to the second God reference. He said, "I believe that with God I can do anything."

I am not here to make fun of Singletary's faith. I admire people of faith and I admire Singletary. But I don't know how he knows God will help him beat other teams. Did God speak to Singletary? Does God like Singletary more than other coaches, more than Mike Holmgren who will be at Candlestick on Sunday? Is God a Niners' fan?

Singletary raised these issues whether or not he knew it. I admire his faith but I wonder about his theology. I'm not the only one. Years ago I wrote a book about Bill Walsh and on page 161 he spoke about God and sports. I'll give the entire lengthy quotation because it is relevant to Singletary:

"I hope to keep it (religion) within normal expression, rather than take it a step further into Christian dialogue, giving yourself to the Lord. There are some that let this thing get out of context. It's where you get the very vocal person, let's say of the Christian faith, who wants to make this a vehicle to have people give their lives to the Lord instead of play football. I can remember Bubba Paris after we'd just busted our ass -- guys were broken, bleeding, hurting -- we finally came back in 1988 and won the division and the championship and I can't remember what game it might have been, but Bubba had to tell the press that the Lord just did that, won the game for us.

"The Lord did it? I mean, maybe He did, to each person, He anointed every player or something. But why would He do it for us and not for the other team? What kind of a Lord is that? A lot of guys were really disgusted with Bubba for that, not mad, just, 'Yuck, get away, you jerk.' Because these guys had really worked and humped and come back, and now suddenly, the Lord stepped in and did it? In other words, if they hadn't sacrificed, it was going to happen anyway.

"That's offensive as heck to me. Whoever He is -- or She is -- He must have higher goals than deciding who's going to win a football game, because there are about thirty million starving to death within ten hours on an airplane ride. So He comes over to the stadium and helps, Jeez, it's ridiculous."

That's a strong quote from Walsh about faith and football. I'm sure Singletary believes in hard work and all that. But I don't believe God will make him a winning coach. I believe God is looking out for all coaches on all sides of the ball.

-- Lowell

J.T. O'Sullivan will not do. He is a backup quarterback masquerading as a starter. The 49er coach next season -- whoever he is -- must have a new starting QB. Iggy suggests Matt Cassell of the Patriots. This, to me, is a heck of a suggestion.

Monday night against Denver Cassell threw for three TDs and had zero picks. That's a lot better than the Niners' guy nicknamed Just Turn Overs.

Iggy tells me that Cassell is a free agent after this season and the Patriots may not be able to re-sign him after Tom Brady comes back. He says if the Niners can get Cassel they will have a good NFL quarterback and they can draft a quarterback whom they can develop. If they can't get Cassell, they should get someone like him. They need a QB.

Iggy goes further. He says the Niners should bring in Pete Carroll as head coach/football czar. Carroll coached Cassel at USC, so this is interesting. Iggy and I both believe the 49ers need a football czar over Scot McCloughan. Carroll is a Marin native and was Niner defensive coordinator in 1995 and 1996, so he has 49er roots. "He even looks like Bill Walsh," Iggy told me.

I don't think Carroll will want to leave USC, but you never know.

The point is the 49ers have some nice pieces already -- a great running back and one great linebacker, for sure. But they will get nowhere without a quarterback.

-- Lowell (with help from Iggy)

Readers of the Cohn Zohn tell me I'm too hard on the 49ers. Here's a reality check. I am not a fan. I tell the truth as I understand it. And what I understand after today's weird, rambling inconclusive news conference introducing Mike Singletary is that the Niners don't have the semblance of a plan.

I mean, you'd expect a real professional outfit to project to the end of the season, to know if they will retain general manager Scot McCloughan, to know if they plan to retain Singletary or make him compete with other candidates, if they plan to get a new quarterback to replace JTO -- Just Turn Overs.

Nothing.

I asked Jed York who was there subbing for his dad, the big Yorker. And why in the world was John York not in attendance at a time like that? I asked Jed if the Niners have a plan to bring in a new team president after the season, someone to oversee the whole operation.

I was thinking of Mike Holmgren. I know I wrote earlier he should be coach. Scratch that. That's small potatoes. Let him be the Niner football czar in charge of talent, the GM and the coaches. He has a vision. No one currently on the Niners has a large vision.

So what did Jed say when I asked if the team will bring in a president from the outside? "We haven't discussed that?"

Haven't discussed that? Well what in the world did they discuss?

"Hey, Scot let's go out and buy some Big Whoppers and Cokes."

My God, the team is at a crossroads -- again -- and has not projected ahead a few months.

Pathetic. No wonder the 49ers never make any progress.

-- Lowell

During today's press conference introducing new/interim head coach Mike Singletary, I asked general manager Scot McCloughan a two-part question.

1. Why did the team allow Mike Nolan to hold his tense, degrading Monday news conference if the Niners knew they would fire him?

2. Did McCloughan think it was appropriate to leak news of Nolan's firing to the media?

Here's what McCloughan said. He told me when Nolan held his noon press conference the 49ers did not know they would fire him the same day.

As crazy as this sounds, I believe McCloughan. I believe him because 49ers management can't plan ten minutes in advance and this screw-up is typical.

McCloughan also said no one from the 49ers leaked anything to the media. This I am suspicious of. Here's what I think happened. After the press conference Nolan went to McCloughan and said he read the team wanted to fire him after next Sunday's Seattle game. McCloughan said yes. Nolan, who has guts, said something like -- then just fire me now.
So the Niners, who were unprepared, fired him. They were so unprepared no one from the organization made an official statement of the firing until 10:15 Monday day -- even though the whole world knew the truth.

So, you bet, I think the Niners ratted out Nolan. My guess is McCloughan was the leaker. Whoever did it, did not allow Nolan the dignity of a polite exit. At the end, Nolan showed more character than the characters around him.

-- Lowell

All good luck to Mike Singletary and if he is wildly successful the Niners should put him in a pool of names to compete for the head coach job next season. I doubt he will succeed but he deserves the chance.

I am reading Pete Carroll is a secret aspirant to the job. Good. Fine. But the 49ers should go after Mike Holmgren. Holmgren said he'll take time off after this season in Seattle, said he promised his wife Kathy a sabattical from football. Fair enough. In spite of that, the Niners should do everything in their power to entice him to become their coach. They should court Holmgren and his wife and make her comfortable with this new situation which would be a dream come true for Holmgren, for the organization and the fans.

In spite of his current record, Holmgren is one of the premier NFL coaches and he is in the Bill Walsh line. He will return Niner football to what it should be -- a West Coast Offense team -- and he will restore a sense of history and pride. He is the obvious choice and he has worked with Scot McCloughan in Seattle so the transition would be smooth.

This is a no brainer. Do the Yorks have the brains to pull it off?

-- Lowell

At 10:30 p.m. someone from the 49ers finally called me to officially say Mike Nolan got fired and Mike Singletary is interim head coach. There's a press conference noon on Tuesday introducing Singletary.

The press conference will be interesting. Scot McCloughan will say what a great guy Nolan is and how it was difficult to fire him but the team needed to go in another direction.

Nolan deserved what he got. If McCloughan doesn't shape up someone may have to fire him, too.

Singletary will give some speech about how he's going to turn the team around. Don't believe it. He has no head-coaching experience and couldn't get another head-coaching gig in the NFL. John York seems to hire these no-name, no-credentials guys. There's something else. The Niners have a tradition -- West Coast Offense, etc. Singletary is light years away from the tradition. He was a linebacker for the Bears, for heaven's sake. York also is light years away from the tradition. He made the Niners into the un-Niners, made them into something unrecognizable. What a shame.

-- Lowell

OK, two reliable news agencies are reporting it now. Mike Nolan is out. The Niners fired him this afternoon after, curiously, allowing him to conduct his weekly news conference during which he got grilled by the media. No one ever said football owners have a heart.

Does Nolan deserve to get fired now?

Heck, yes.

I had written the team should keep him if he coached and won next Sunday. But this is just as good. The team obviously is going nowhere with him and he got more than a fair chance. He should have been fired at the end of last season, and the team's 2-5 record so far only proves how weak he is as the head guy. His career record in SF is 18-37 and nobody survives with a record like that.

The 49ers, it is said, will bring in Mike Singletary as interim head coach. He's as good as anyone else at this point, but interims usually don't do well. And, get this, he's a defensive coach. The Niners need an offensive-minded head coach who will bring back the West Coast Offense.

At the end of this season, John York should get rid of the entire coaching staff and bring in people who really know what they're doing. Does GM Scot McCloughan know what he's doing? Your guess is as good as mine.

-- Lowell

Here is a selection of dialogue from what is probably Mike Nolan' final Monday press conference. To my way of thinking he over-rates J.T. O'Sullivan and makes excuses for him. He does not even consider starting Shaun Hill. He confronts the fact that he may lose his job. Some say he's already lost it to Mike Singletary who would be interim coach. Singletary is a defensive coach, and that's not really what the Niners need. They need an offensive guy who uses the West Coast Offense.

Q: Will you make a change at quarterback?

A: We will not make a change at quarterback. J.T. gives us our best chance to win.

Q: Why is he your best QB?

A: As evidenced by the film and by the game, he makes plays and he gives us a great chance to move the ball. He makes good decisions. He has to do a better job of securing the football. There's no question. But as far as his ability to run the offense he gives us the best chance to win.

Q: Does that mean JTO is a good starting QB?

A: The turnovers don't make him produce at the winning level. I believe for this football team he is developing and he will develop into a very good quarterback.

Q: Why hasn't he been securing the ball?

A: Just focus. We have to work on it more in practice, create drills as a coaching staff that involve that. In practice you do tell your defensive guys to stay away from the quarterback. We're not going to slap at his hands in a drill with the risk of breaking a knuckle or anything like that. That would be foolish. Some of that's got to be attention to detail on his own.

Q: Why is J.T. better for this offense than Shaun Hill?

A: J.T. O'Sullivan can deliver the ball vertically more often. I would say Shaun is a safer choice but when you're trying to get better and trying to score points the ball has to go down the field a bit more. J.T. has a better grasp of the offense. If you take away the bad plays and look at what he's done he's very capable of producing regularly on offense. You can't dismiss those bad plays and that's what we need to correct but there's the evidence there of what we need to do. If you see the positive plays that's very good. If you add the negative that's what we need to correct.

Q: Does JTO lack pocket awareness?

A: He needs to secure the ball better when he's in the pocket. It's not always his fault. We have to work on that in practice more, set up some drills. He does take coaching to heart.

Q: What did you think the team would do well before the season?

A: I thought we'd play more consistent defense. Special teams I expected to be good, they continue to be good. Offensively I expected us to be very capable coming out of the preseason because it was evident we really could move the ball. It was also evident when we didn't secure the ball it would be difficult to win. When we did secure the ball we would win.

Q: Aren't risks and mistakes inherent in (Mike Martz') offense?

A: I wouldn't put the mistake word in there. But there's a risk when you turn someone loose so you can get a big play. It's more risky than to bring a bunch of guys in to protect, eliminate the possibility of a big play and just work the one on one.

Q: Why will J.T. cut down on those errors?

A: I can only believe that with coaching he will get better. In practice we complete a lot of balls. That's a good sign. We don't turn a lot of balls over in practice.

Q: How would you evaluate yourself?

A: I'm not in a position to hire or fire Mike Nolan. I've got confidence in a lot of things around me. We've just go to put it together and get some wins is all.

Q: Why are you confident that you can get over this losing streak and start to win games?

A: Because I have no choice but to be confident. It's not a choice. It's just the way it is. It's my job.

Q: Do you want to hear a show of support from the Yorks?

A: You always want to have support, but I know what my job is. My job is to work with the players and coaches and try to put together the best game plan to win games. That's what my job is.

Q: Would you bring up the big picture with ownership?

A: Would I bring it up? No, it's a distraction. I know what my job is. My job's to coach the team and win games. It's just a reality that's on the outside but I can't let it affect what my job is. It's just speculation until something is acted on.

Q: Why should you keep your job?

A: Because it's my job right now. I am the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.

Q: Football reasons?

A: We're a football team that these last four weeks we lost four games. But at the same time you've got a very strong group of players. Our players play hard week in and week out. That's a sign they're prepared. The penalties we can correct. We don't have a divided house.

-- Lowell

ESPN is reporting Mike Nolan gets fired win or lose next Sunday. If he gets fired after a win, no one can argue with that. Everyone must feel Nolan got a fair shot and the organizatin must move on. Personally, I would keep him if he beats the Seahawks, but I don't insist. I can understand John York wanting to clear out Nolan and his losing ways.

ESPN says Mike Singletary will be the interim. Sure, give him a chance. Just don't let Mike Martz be the interim. No way. Never.

-- Lowell