Fantasy owners (and all football fans) scratched their heads in slightly horrified puzzlement at news that the 49ers interviewed Dan Reeves to be their new offensive coordinator.
Reeves met with Niners coach Mike Singletary and general manager Scot McCloughan at the team's facility as the team seeks to fill the gap created in their coaching staff by Mike Martz's firing Dec. 30.
Reeves was a head coach for 23 seasons in the NFL with Denver, the Giants and Atlanta. But he has been out of coaching since being replaced by Wade Phillips with three games left in the 2003 season with the Falcons.
It wasn't long ago that Dan Reeves was the destroyer of fantasy football hopes. He had a combined 80-92 record in eleven seasons with the Giants and Falcons -- and only two seasons in that stretch with 10+ wins.
The 1993 Giants finished 11-5 despite scoring a total of eleven rushing touchdowns. They were led by Rodney Hampton with five. Whooooo! Hampton was averaging over 24 carries a game before getting hurt, he and Lewis Tillman combined for 413 carries that season (that theme will come up again). An aged Phil Simms finished with only 15 passing TDs.
The 1998 Falcons won the NFC Championship with a 14-2 record, led by Jamal Anderson's 1846 rushing yards and TWO 1100+ yard receivers (Tony Martin and Terance Mathis). Sounds good right? The only problem was that Anderson's great season was built on a mind-numbing 410 carries, the highest single-season total in NFL history at that time. Anderson blew out a knee two games into the following season, Chris Chandler fell apart and the Falcons dove to 5-11. Hands up if you drafted Jamal Anderson in the top five of your 1999 fantasy football draft. Yeah, me too.
And those were Reeves' GOOD seasons.
Dan Reeves would be absolutely horrible for fantasy football owners. He'd probably run Frank Gore a lot -- I mean a LOT -- until he broke down, which would probably be around Week 5. He has a tendency to use experienced, not-so-talented QBs, so maybe he'll trade for Brad Johnson or Kyle Boller. Yes, that will turn out as badly as you think.
For the sake of fantasy football, let's hope the Niners choose somebody else.