What if?

What if Alex Smith evolves into a play making, legitimate NFL quarterback? Doesn’t mean the Niners will be a winning team, just means we won’t have a QB to kick around. To win the Niners need an effective, healthy, kick ass offensive line. By the time that evolves we’ll have at least one year less on Barlow’s contract.

What if Kevin Barlow watched video of LaDainian Tomlinson for one week straight? Would he evolve into a North-South runner? Doubt it, but for that to happen they still would need an effective, healthy, kick ass offensive line.

What if the Niners drafted the second coming of TO next season? They’d have one more playmaker and one huge ego, but we wouldn’t win if they don’t fix the O-line.

The offensive line has been a weakness of every Niner team since the mid-nineties. Not since Derrick Deese was a guard have the Niners really pushed people around with the front line. Sure Ray Brown and squad mowed some lawns, but they lacked a little in the passing D role.

It occurs to me that about the time this unit really started to loose its punch was the same time Steve Young was told that the Niners weren’t competing for championships any more.

Why, in the past, did the Niners consistently have such great offensive lines? They had a great offensive line coach, Bob McKittrick. Great offensive lines are institutions and that is the challenge facing the Niners organization. Building an institution of winning is the true test of York and his organization.

We know that York can destroy an institution of winning, but can he build one? Sorry, I don’t have any faith in that.

T-Bone