Jimmy Johnson: Mike Singletary Like a Motivational Speaker Taking Over a Team

LBS had the opportunity to sit down with National Championship and Super Bowl winning coach Jimmy Johnson recently. Jimmy is running the first ever Crown Royal Jimmy Bowl which is a football game between two teams of four adults the Friday after the Super Bowl at Cowboys Stadium (go here for your chance to play in the game!). One of the subjects brought up was 49ers coach Mike Singletary, who seems to be in an unstable position in terms of job status. San Francisco was expected to run away with the NFC West but instead they’ve struggled to a 3-7 start.

When asked about Singletary, Johnson said it was like a motivational speaker was taking over an NFL team. That’s funny, because Singletary is a powerful speaker with a background as a motivational speaker. Though Jimmy has been a motivational speaker, he says there’s two important factors about the audience that makes it easy for the speaker’s message to be received: they are open to your message, and they pay to hear you speak. Johnson explained what we knew, that in the NFL the players aren’t always open to your message, and they already have a ton of money, making them less likely to listen.

Though the 49ers owners are the only ones who can make the call on the job status of Mike Singletary, it was pretty obvious that Johnson did not think Singletary was qualified. After going 5-4 since taking over for Mike Nolan in 2008 and 8-8 in 2009, the Niners have completely flopped. Singletary, while loveable because of his speeches, likely isn’t the man for the job, but San Francisco’s biggest problem in my eyes is this.