If any San Francisco 49ers fans are feeling down about the team's poor season, you only need to look at a rival prominent throughout Niners history to come up with a mantra that should follow you through the long, dark, offseason.
At least we're not the Dallas Cowboys.
Owner Jerry Jones' football theme park took yet another bizarre twist this week, as the team agreed to terms to promote offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to the position of head coach.
This article's only delayed because I've had to stop laughing first.
Jones' ninth head coach follows an exhausted (rather than exhaustive) search of the stranger names of the NFL coaching carousel, with Hall of Fame defensive back Deion Sanders (which would've been a media sideshow), now-returning 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, and Jason Witten(!!!), a man with no coaching experience, but who looked good in a Cowboys jersey, all linked.
Schottenheimer is an NFL veteran. He's coached in the league for around 20years, and actuallyjoins the 49ers' Kyle Shanahan as one of the few father-son coach duos in the NFL (his father being erstwhile great-coach-until-January Marty Schottenheimer), but he's hardly pulled up trees as an NFL offensive mind.
The junior Schottenheimer has had stints with the New York Jets, Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams as an offensive coordinator, each time leaving under something of a cloud of underperformance.
You can be critical (and I have been) of the Niners' coaching searches this offseason, but the fact that Jones would replace a coach like Mike McCarthy (a former San Francisco offensive coordinator, lest we forget) who is, for all his faults, a successful and Super Bowl-winning coach, with a head coaching neophyte like Schottenheimer should honestly give 49ers fans cause for great amusement, and in a way, celebration.
If it wasn't already clear that the head coaching pool in the NFL is large but shallow in terms of ability, Schottenheimer's hire illustrates it perfectly. It's a hire by Jones that smacks of previous decisions to promote Dave Campo in 2000 or Jason Garrett back in 2010: a safe, yes-man hire that ultimately does nothing to push the Cowboys back towards a Super Bowl, particularly as both they and the Niners continue on their quests for what has been, so far, an elusive sixth Super Bowl ring.
If that doesn't make you glad the 49ers have Shanahan, what will?
Regardless, these will not be the Cowboys the 49ers remember from titanic playoff battles of 1981, 1993, and 1994 (or even as late as last year's Divisional Round) for quite some time yet, in spite of the talent on their roster like quarterback Dak Prescott and linebacker Micah Parsons. This hire seems likely to consign them to the also-ran pile for the near future.
At least until Jerry swings his axe again.
Enjoy it while we can, Niners fans.
Read more from Niner Noise
manual