Welcome to our first Odds & Ends of 2016!

After one season of going 5-11, the 49ers and coach Jim Tomsula went their separate ways on Sunday as the team missed the playoffs for the second consecutive season and finished last in the NFC West. They will draft seventh overall in April’s NFL Draft.

Here’s my question, when is someone going to get rid of some of the front office? Aren’t they the ones who are the real problem?

They are,after all,the ones who let Jim Harbaugh go because they couldn’t get along with him and what does he go and do? He leads Michigan to a 10-3 record and wins the Citrus Bowl. It seems like they not only let the wrong guy go,but they’ve made bad decisions since then. From hiring Tomsula to sticking with Colin Kaepernick,who wasted Kurt Warner’s time and tutelage in the offseason to their shitty field conditions to fans not wanting to go to any games and you’ve got a recipe for not only a bad season,but a dysfunctional culture and a losing one.

I hope their next coach is not only an improvement from Tomsula,but also one who gets a longer leash. I doubt that the 49ers will extend that leash,but they’re going to have to if they want to be successful. It’s not enough for fans when you build a billion-dollar stadium if the product you’re putting onto the field isn’t worth the price of admission,hence the empty red seats on Sundays.

Has anyone noticed the attendance at these lesser bowl games is piss poor?

Someone I know who went to the Foster Farms Bowl where 5-win Nebraska (that should be against the law,by the way,no 5-win team should ever be in any bowl game ever) went up against UCLA and she posted pictures of the scarce crowd at Levi’s Stadium, where next month’s Super Bowl 50 will be played.

It’s not just the Foster Farms Bowl where people aren’t likely to be found. The St. Petersburg Bowl with Marshall going up against Connecticut drew 14,652 which was down by over 12,000 from the year prior. The Pinstripe Bowl in New York, The Heart of Dallas Bowl and the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego also experienced lower attendance figures.

I get that a lot of these schools who participate in these bowls that nobody wants to go to gert a hefty payday,but is it worth it to have these games where no national title or playoff is even decided? I think we could do without 20-30 of these bowl games.

Nobody wants to go to them or even watch a lot of them (Honey,let’s watch the Belk Bowl!) and with the college football landscape finally having a playoff in Division I-FBS, it may as well be time for these lesser bowl games to go away in favor of an expansion of the playoff system. I know it won’t happen anytime soon,but in my view,that’s how you solve attendance woes, by making the playoff system bigger and having some of these bowl games really matter.

If there’s any team that’s in disarray right now,it’s gotta be the Phoenix Suns.

A team that some thought might make a playoff push this season has lost 10 straight, their most recent loss was probably the most embarrassing of them all. Sure,they only lost by 20 to the Lakers last night,but they were down by as many as 38 to a Lakers team with only seven wins (now eight) prior to last night. The Suns are now 12-25.

Aside from the losses,the team is lost in terms of leadership on the court and on the bench. Two assistant coaches have been let go,and the drama surrounding the team and Markieff Morris has intensified. Morris was suspended two games for throwing a towel at coach Jeff Hornacek and it seems as though Morris is still irked at the team trading his brother,Marcus,to Detroit in the offseason.

The ownership seems to not have a clue,either. When asked about the team’s woes,owner Robert Sarver claimed that the millenial culture has a tough time dealing with setbacks. Way to blame it on an entire generation who is now in the league.

The Suns just have a lot of problems that,until a few wins strung together come through, their woes will continue and things will be spiraling downward even further.