FanHouse J.t.Osullivan

After missing the 2008 season with a shoulder injury, it was possible that Alex Smith's tenure as a San Francisco 49er was over. Despite the injury, and the fact his play, when healthy, has been rather disappointing for a No. 1 overall pick, the 49ers seemed interested in keeping the 24-year-old quarterback around under one condition: him being willing to take a pay cut.

On Monday, the 49ers and Smith agreed to re-work his contract, agreeing to a two-year, $6.5 million deal. According to Matt Maiocco of the Press Democrat, the reduced salary is expected to save the 49ers as much as $6 million against the league's salary cap.

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

After the uneventful tenure of head coach Mike Nolan, the San Francisco 49ers decided to promote Mike Singletary to interim head coach during the 2008 season.

After a bizarre debut that saw Singletary address his team without pants, the 49ers finished the season on a 5-4 run under their new coach, ending the year with a 7-9 record. Had it not been for a confusing ending to a Monday night game against Arizona, the 49ers would have finished with a .500 record for the first time since 2002. So close, yet so far.

Just two days after Mike Singletary was handed a new contract to stay on as the 49ers' head coach, he has already cut ties with offensive coordinator Mike Martz, firing him after just one season in San Francisco. The initial reports following Singletary's hiring were that he would have the power to choose his assistant coaches. Despite this, a report from Jay Glazer of FOX Sports seemed to indicate that he was urged to go in another direction in regards to the offensive coordinator position, which seems to contradict his ability to pick and choose coaches.

Bottom line: Martz is no longer with the 49ers. During his one year with the team, the offense improved from the absolute worst in the league in 2007, to somewhat mediocre in 2008. His biggest failing was probably his loyalty to journeyman backup quarterback J.T. O'Sullivan, and, allegedly, creating ways to keep him on the field. Once O'Sullivan played his way out of the starting job, Shaun Hill proved he was the best option on the roster.

As for Martz, here's what he had to say on the move, from Matt Maiocco of the Press Democrat:

"He wants to run the ball," Martz said in a phone interview from his office. "I'm not what he's looking for on offense. That's his business."

Thanks to a 39-yard Joe Nedney field goal as time expired, the 49ers closed out their season with a 27-24 win over the Washington Redskins on Sunday afternoon. With the victory, San Francisco ends the season with a 7-9 mark, which was capped off with a 5-4 run under interim head coach Mike Singletary.

After some speculation earlier in the week that Singletary would be remaining with the team in 2009, the 49ers confirmed it following Sunday's win, and signed Singletary to a four-year, $10 million contract, as reported by Matt Maiocco of the Press Democrat.

49ers president Jed York on the signing: "This is the last time our season ends in December."

You know, as long as the 49ers play in the NFC West, he might be right. I mean, just look at that division this season, and ask yourself if it's likely to get any better next season. Is it entirely out of the question for this team to enter 2009 as a legitimate contender for the division title? I mean, they only finished two games out this season despite the 2-5 hole Mike Nolan and J.T. O'Sullivan helped them dig over the first seven weeks.

On Wednesday, Gretz mentioned that the 49ers were giving Mike Singletary an early Christmas gift: the head coaching gig for next season.

The club canned Mike Nolan after a 2-5 start, but the team has been 5-4 since. And next year, Singletary will have the pleasure of trying to win football games without offensive coordinator Mike Martz sabotaging everything. This comes as shocking news to, well, nobody, really. Not even J.T. O'Sullivan.

With Martz one-and-done in San Francisco, who should take over the play-calling duties? The San Francisco Chronicle's Gwen Knapp has a suggestion:

If, however, [Norv] Turner is available and Singletary is interested, nothing should get in their way. When Turner left San Francisco two years ago, he put the 49ers in a terrible position. The 49ers had already responded to the Cowboys' interest in Turner by promising to pay him a salary commensurate with his status as the coordinator who had given the breath of life to a moribund offense. Then San Diego came along with a late offer, and Turner went, taking the 49ers' future with him.

For all the knocks on Turner the head coach, he's the anti-Ron when it comes to coordinating up an offense. Norv had a lot to do with Alex Smith's progress in 2006, and before that, he was a coordinator for the Dolphins, Chargers and Cowboys. And in virtually every stop, he was successful. There's no reason to think he wouldn't be able to revitalize the 49ers' moribund offense, particularly if you think Shaun Hill is a more viable option than Smith.

Of course, there's the little issue of Turner still having a job.

On Sunday, the mustache-wearing 49ers will close out their regular season against the Washington Redskins, with the hope of finishing the season on a hot-streak. If they should pull out the win at home, the 49ers will close the season on a 5-4 run under interim head coach Mike Singletary, after starting the season 2-5 under Mike Nolan. If only Nolan would have inspired his team by dropping his pants once or twice, the season may have gone a different direction. Or perhaps not.

Regardless, there seems to be plenty of good news for Singletary, as Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee points out that the team may be ready to name him its head coach, removing that pesky interim tag, as soon as Sunday's game with Washington ends. The thinking is, according to Barrows, that if a number of teams fire their current head coaches, Singletary could be a wanted man, and the 49ers don't want to let that happen.

Barrows also reports that Singletary met with the top brass in the San Francisco organization this week, and laid out his blueprint for returning the 49ers to relevance in the NFL. A blueprint that does not include offensive coordinator Mike Martz.

Just about every time I checked in on the 49ers-Rams game yesterday -- hey, I check in on all of the games -- it looked like Shaun Hill was doing his best to throw the game away for San Francisco. For three quarters, that's pretty much what he was doing as he completed just 10-of-21 passes, while throwing three interceptions, putting his team in a 16-3 hole in the fourth quarter.

Naturally, interim head coach Mike Singletary considered sending Hill to the bench, replacing him with J.T. O'Sullivan. Desperate times, I guess.

As Kevin Lynch of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in his blog following the game, Hill was "geeked up" because he had friends and family in the stands, and he was having none of this benching nonsense. Apparently, he was "geeked up" enough to convince Singletary to leave him in the game, mostly because he had "the look in his eyes."

I'm not sure what "the look" is, but whatever he had in his eyes, he finished the game completing 8 of his final 13 passes, including a pair of touchdowns in the games final four minutes, leading the 49ers to a 17-16 comeback win on the road.

After a 2-5 start, the 49ers fired Mike Nolan and the team has gone 3-3 in the six weeks since. The biggest win of the year came last Sunday against the Jets, and in addition to bringing a little joy to a hapless Bay Area football scene, it also greatly improved the chances that Mike Singletary will be more than an interim head coach.

Of course, maybe Nolan would still have the job if he had the cajones to tell offensive coordinator Mike Martz, "I know you're an 'offensive mastermind' and whatnot, but I'm pretty sure that J.T. O'Sullivan isn't very good. Call it a hunch. I'll take my chances with Shaun Hill."

But what's done is done.

There is a happy ending of sorts for Nolan, however:

Back in training camp, the San Francisco 49ers made the rather curious decision to name J.T. O'Sullivan their starting quarterback despite the fact he had never really done anything in the NFL to warrant such a position. It raised a few eyebrows because they not only had a former No. 1 overall pick on the roster (Alex Smith), but also because Shaun Hill played well in his limited action a season ago. And while three games when the team had nothing to play for isn't exactly a large sampling of data to examine, it's still more than O'Sullivan had accomplished in his career.

Nonetheless, the 49ers gave the job to O'Sullivan, and for a couple of games, it looked like it wasn't going to completely backfire on them. Mike Martz was delirious in his praise of the journeyman signal-caller, while the team won two of its first three games. Then, all of a sudden, O'Sullivan started to play like a guy who had played for eight teams in six years, turning the ball over at an alarming rate, while the 49ers dropped five games in a row.

This, of course, led to O'Sullivan taking a seat on the bench, and Hill taking over under center.

Earlier this season we had quite a bit of fun with 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Martz, after he laughingly proclaimed that journeyman J.T. O'Sullivan could be the best quarterback he's ever coached. It was laughable because, well, Martz has coached Kurt Warner and Marc Bulger, two pretty good NFL quarterbacks.

While Martz knows infinitely more about football and quarterback play than I ever will, I'm quite certain O'Sullivan, owner of about 12 different sets of team authorized luggage, is not a better quarterback than Warner (two-time MVP, Super Bowl champion) or Bulger (steady NFL starter for about seven years) and, frankly, he never will be. Actually, if O'Sullivan duplicated Jon Kitna's career (another Martz favorite) I'd be kind of surprised. So, right off the top of my head I'm thinking O'Sullivan, at best, is the fourth best quarterback Martz has had under his wing. Actually, if you include current starting quarterback Shaun Hill, well, you get the idea.

All of that aside, Martz, the mad scientist that he is, was at it once again today, when he told the local scribes in the bay area that 49ers center Eric Heitmann is "by far" the best center he's ever coached. From Matt Maiocco of the Press Democrat: