Woes of a 49er/Giants Fan

I have been a fan of the San Francisco 49ers and Giants since I was 10 years old, back in the days when Joe Montana and Jerry Rice were dominating the NFL, and when Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell were leading the Giants to the World Series.

Nowadays, the 49ers have gone through numerous quarterbacks in an ongoing, never-ending rebuilding period. Sure the management have begun to put the team together piece by piece bringing in Frank Gore, Vernon Davis and Patrick Willis via the NFL Draft and signing free agents like veteran linebacker Takeo Spikes or wide reciever Isaac Bruce. But it's hard for me as a fan, to see a team who set a precedent of dominace in the NFC, struggle against some of the new powerhouse teams in the NFL.

They have shown signs of improvement over the years, especially last year, after the firing of head coach Mike Nolan and the hiring of new coach Mike Singletary, the 49ers finished last season 7-9 after starting the season 2-6.

This season looked promising, after we pulled off the steal of the NFL Draft, in Texas Tech Wide Reciever Michael Crabtree, but alas we drafted a diva. Now officially he is the last player to holdout, and is threatening to sit out the season, we do not deserve this.

We should have made a push for some of the veteran recievers on the market like a TJ Houshmandzadeh or a Braylon Edwards or even Marvin Harrison, but no we cashed out chips on Crabtree and busted.

When we made the pick for Crabtree, I thought this was would be our year, to take the division. Now I don't know if we could do better than 8-8, this year, seeing as how we get the joyous task of playing the AFC South (Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Houston Texans), not to mention the high powered offense of Atlanta and the Vikings with Brett Favre, B-E-A-UTIFUL!!!!!!

My expectations for the season, are not so good, I think we can win eight games, but without Crabtree, I don't see the 49ers escaping the NFC West over last year's champion Cardinals or the Seahawks who not only picked up Houshmandzadeh but recently former Cardinal running back Edgerrin James.

As far as the Giants, they were really looking good at the start of the season. Clearly, the team has one of the best starting rotations in all of baseball fronted by last year's Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum and joined by Matt Cain, and previous Cy Young award winners Barry Zito and Randy Johnson.

At the All-Star Break, the Giants had a solid lead in the Wild Card race, I say that because the Dodgers were on such a roll that my team has no chance to catch them.

Now with the recent and unbelievable resurgence of the "Unknown Comic" team that is the Colorado Rockies, the Giants are on the outside looking in, they are six games out of the division lead and four games out of the wild card.

First of all, why haven't we gone out and picked up some power for our lineup, sure we're not going to have another Barry Bonds, but spending 40 million dollars on Aaron Rowand (good pickup as far as defense) and signing aging free agents like Edgar Renteria, doesn't help our line-up. I mean before the season, and prior to his 50 game suspension, we made a push for Manny Ramirez but we gave up and let the Dodgers resign him.

I've said the Giants are a division winning caliber team based on their pitching, Lincecum is yet again having an all-star and Cy Young caliber year joined by Cain who could make this race for the Cy Young highly tight till the rest of the year. But we need hitting, our lineup right now can't compete with the rest of the league, yet alone the division, the No-Name Rockies have a better lineup than we do.

Sure, the season isn't over yet and anything can still happen, but since their collapse, I wonder if the Giants will ever get back to prominence as one of the league's best teams.