FanHouse Cody Pickett

Earlier this week, Ryan Wilson passed along the information that former New York Giants head coach, Jim Fassel, was in such dire need to get back into coaching that he would be willing to take on the task of leading the Oakland Raiders. He even, reportedly, wrote Al Davis a hand-written letter expressing his desire to coach the silver and black.

Frankly, if there's any truth to that report, Davis should probably strike while the iron is hot and hire somebody, anybody, that is willing to work for him. If he doesn't, Fassel has another potential option, one that's familiar to guys who can't find work in the National Football League.

Canada.

We all know that Nolan is the Monty Hall of the NFL, and that if he had the opportunity to trade his grandmother, he would. I wanted to take a look around the league and see how the crop of players Nolan traded away have fared through the first week of the season. We'll continue to check periodically throughout the season to see who ended up with the better end of the deals, so far the advantage goes to the 49ers.

Kevan Barlow: Barlow was perhaps the only player to actually contribute anything worthwhile to his team. He finished the day against the Titans with a whopping 35 yards and one touchdown. It was nice to see he kept his rushing average right around three yards per carry.

Ken Dorsey: Sunday against the Saints, Dorsey was 3 for 3 in origami swans, and managed to stay within the lines while coloring.

Brandon Lloyd: Lloyd opened the season on primetime, his chance to shine. He finished the evening with zero catches, but he did manage to write some new verses for his next rap album.

Cody Pickett: Well considering he didn't make the Texans squad, the 49ers didn't receive anything, so in a sense he was released. Pickett is currently working as a rodeo clown, and bussing tables at the local Bob's Big Boy.

Tim Rattay: Sunday against the Ravens, Rattay was inactive. Rumors are he gave Gruden's Hummer a nice detailing.

Mike Rumph: Rumph also opened the season on primetime, he managed to record three tackles and not get hurt.

Jamie Winborn: Winborn did see some action against the Ravens, but he produced nothing, however he did help out Rattay and rotated Gruden's tires.

Rashaun Woods: Woods is currently out of football, he was seen over the weekend participating in Turtle Wax's Bass Fishing 3000. He finished fourth by the way.

After watching the 49ers performance on Sunday, the early consensus is that the 49ers haven't lost out on trading away any of these players. Now if they could somehow manage to trade Kwame Harris...

Mike Nolan is the Monty Hall of the NFL. In just under two years Mike Nolan has been a trading fool. During that span he has traded away a total of nine players, that is unheard of in today's NFL. The last time the Niners traded a player for player was back in 1988, if my math is correct that is 17 years, and in two, Nolan has done it nine times. I bet Nolan would trade his grandmother for the right price. The humor in all of this is that those nine players were all drafted by former general manager, Terry Donahue. I guess it is safe to say that Donahue sucked at his job. Of course we already knew that didn't we Niner fans? We didn't need Mike Nolan to trade away players in order for us to see that, but I will not get into the whole Donahue thing, that is a story all in itself.

Now let's take a look closer at those drafts and see who got the better end of the deal.

- John Engelberger for Willie Middlebrooks. Denver won out on this one. Mainly because Engelberger actually produced something. Middlebrooks spent more time getting cut than playing.

- Jamie Winborn for a seventh-round pick. Too early to tell on this deal. Nolan took this seventh-round pick combined it with another and used it to move up in the draft and draft Melvin Oliver. The funny thing about this is that Nolan traded the seventh he received from Jacksonville back to them to move up.