FanHouse San Francisco 49ers

Could we all please stop telling Rex Ryan how to live his life? I mean, I think we should stop telling everybody how to live their lives, but we can start with Rex. Poor guy has coached nine games in the NFL and has already been called everything from a breath of fresh air to a blowhard to a crybaby. Yeah, in case you haven't heard the last thing on the Jets' head coach is that he cried during a team meeting Monday morning. The New York Post broke the story, and it became a big deal in New York. Ryan, to his credit, brought of box of tissues to his Wednesday news conference, joked that he'd just scored a sponsorship deal with Kleenex and said, "I'm man enough to be me."

"I'll be true to myself," Ryan said. "I'm always going to be, and I said that from day one. If I don't fit the stereotype of coach-speak or anything else, so be it. I'm always going to be myself."

Can I say I hope Ryan is reading this when I type, "Thank goodness?"

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Did someone know what they were doing with Vince Young in Tennessee?

Apparently so. There's no doubt that Young is a different quarterback as a starter in 2009 than he was in 2007 and during that infamous opening week game of '08, when the former Titans' No. 1 draft pick sustained a career and emotional breakdown and was benched for Kerry Collins.

NFL players grow and mature as athletes, leaders and men differently. A rare few come out of the draft as impact players. Of those, fewer still are quarterbacks, the most visible and important member of an NFL franchise.

So while Titans coach Jeff Fisher enjoys some breathing room now that his once maligned and winless team is revitalized following a two-game winning streak, perhaps it's time to give the NFL's longest-tenured head coach some credit: making Young a sideline protégé in 2008 and half of '09 has turned this fourth-year quarterback into a new player.

The San Francisco 49ers waited through training camp and the first seven weeks of the regular season for their first-round draft choice, wide receiver Michael Crabtree, to make headlines for something other than his contract demands.

The 10th overall pick did just that Sunday, supplanting starter Josh Morgan and sending two other key 49ers receivers -- Brandon Jones and Jason Hill -- to the inactive list at Houston's Reliant Stadium. That gave Crabtree a starting assignment in his NFL debut, and the former Texas Tech star showed he was worth the wait.

Lined up wide, often opposite veteran Isaac Bruce, Crabtree caught five passes for 56 yards, many of them coming against the Texans' press coverage. Three of his catches resulted in 49ers' first downs.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- In the midst of a pride-swallowing performance that ended with the 49ers on the wrong end of a 45-10 blowout loss to Atlanta, veteran cornerback Dre' Bly became emblematic of a self-important San Francisco team that wasn't nearly as good as its 3-1 record.

After fumbling on a showboating interception return and offering little contrition for his carelessness Sunday night -- "I have fun. Dre' is going to be Dre'" was his explanation -- Bly apologized profusely on Monday for an on-field celebration he admitted was "a poor choice."

Bly, who first approached coach Mike Singletary as well as his teammates, used Singletary's news conference as a stage to announce his public apology.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Anyone who doubted the authenticity of the Atlanta Falcons following their 2-1 start has to take notice after Sunday's 45-10 blowout of the San Francisco 49ers, a game that could have easily exposed the visitors as the pretenders their skeptics thought they might be.

Would they perform a cross-country face plant, coming off the dreaded bye-week hangover? Would they come out like the humbled, outmatched team that resembled the post-Bobby Petrino wreckage in that Week 3 26-10 loss to the Patriots in Foxborough?

Not a chance.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- The Atlanta Falcons weren't even finished piling up takeaways, yards and points in Sunday's 45-10 rout of the 49ers at Candlestick Park when San Francisco coach Mike Singletary lost his sideline poise.

Rather than take out his frustrations on one of his underachieving players, Singletary instead engaged in a third-quarter shouting match with Falcons right guard Harvey Dahl.

During an early third-quarter drive that was dominated by running back Michael Turner (22 total carries for 97 yards) chewing up the 49ers' 3-4 defensive front, Singletary and Dahl argued back and forth, with both of them very animated and obviously irate. Neither was penalized for the jawing match.

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Two weeks into the 2009 NFL season, 49ers' running back Frank Gore already has experienced his nightmare and dream scenarios. And both keep him up at night.

There was the horror of rushing for only 30 yards in the season-opening victory against the Arizona Cardinals. And then there was the validation of dominating the Seahawks' defense and producing 207 yards, a career-high 246 scrimmage yards and two of the longest scoring runs of his career, 79 and 80 yards, in a Week 2 victory at Candlestick Park.

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Rookie quarterback Nate Davis, a San Francisco 49ers fifth-round draft pick in 2009, had an uncomfortable conversation several times in recent days with 12th-year quarterback Damon Huard. It wasn't about mentor-pupil anymore. How's this for awkward: Only one of them would make it through the week on the 49ers' roster.

So the conversation was about survival.

Mandatory roster cutdowns were imminent on NFL teams and the 49ers were carrying four quarterbacks. Shaun Hill had earned the starting job; former No. 1 overall pick Alex Smith was idling in neutral at No. 2. That meant a final spot came down to Davis or Huard.

"We always stayed positive with each other and said, 'We hope that we're both here,'" Davis says of his many heartfelt talks with his most direct competitor for an NFL job.

So according to 49ers beat writer Matt Maiocco's Twitter feed, the 49ers announced that Shaun Hill, and not former No. 1 overall pick Alex Smith, will start the team's first regular-season game three weeks from now. And while this is significant news for those who follow the 49ers -- and while I would never want to downplay the resolution of a training camp position battle since we all spend so much time analyzing them -- I watched the 49ers' game from Saturday night, and my reaction to this move is: YAWN.

Whether the 49ers picked Hill, Smith, you, me or brought Joe Montana out of retirement, whoever starts at quarterback in San Francisco is going to do a whole lot of handing off. They brought Nate Davis in during the second half and the broadcasters said something about, "He's got a big arm and we're going to get to see that," and they looked pretty silly when the first six plays after Davis went in were running plays.