In Press Conference, Mike Singletary Goes Off Following the 49ers Loss

Following the 49ers' 34-13 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, head coach Mike Singletary presided over a tension-filled press conference where he apologized to fans for the team's poor performance. Although visibly angry, Singletary maintained his composure (for the most part) but displayed the kind of intensity that fans were used to seeing during his days as an All-Pro linebacker for the Chicago Bears.

He called out players on his team for their selfish play and their lack of a desire to win saying, "I would rather play with 10 people and just get penalized all the way until we got to do something else, rather than play with 11 when I know that right now that person is not sold out to be part of this team. Cannot play with them. Cannot win with them. Cannot coach with them. Can't do it. I want winners."

Singletary made clear earlier in the day that he wasn't all talk; in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game he sent Vernon Davis to the locker room telling him "he'd do a better job for us right now taking a shower and coming back and watching the game than going out on the field." While he displayed the kind of heart and emotion that 49ers fans were hoping he would bring to the team, Mike Singletary's post game tirade was far from the biggest blow-up by a head coach in NFL history.

Here are three of the biggest NFL coaching freakouts of all time:

#3 Herm Edwards - "You play to win the game!"

Herm Edwards may be the Yogi Berra of the NFL. Known for his "Hermonisms," Edwards has been the source of many notable quotes throughout his career. His most famous Hermonism comes from a post game press conference on October 30, 2002 when has was the head coach for the New York Jets. When a reporter questioned Edwards about the Jets' ability to win football games, he responded, "This is what's great about sports. This is what the greatest thing about sports is. You play to win the game. Hello? You play to win the game. You don't play it to just play it. That's the great thing about sports: you play to win, and I don't care if you don't have any wins. You go play to win. When you start tellin' me it doesn't matter, then retire. Get out! 'Cause it matters." While Edwards was visibility angry, his level of anger pales in comparison to other famous coaching rants.

#2 Jim Mora - "Playoffs?!"

Jim Mora's coaching career was filled with YouTube gems. There was the famous "Diddley Poo" speech in 1996 when he was the head coach of the New Orleans Saints:

"Well, what happened was, that second game, we got our ass kicked. In the second half, we just got our ass totally kicked. We couldn't do diddly poo offensively, we couldn't make a first down, we couldn't run the ball, we didn't try to run the ball, we couldn't complete a pass - we sucked. The second half, we sucked. We couldn't stop the run. Every time they got the ball, they went down and got points. We got our ass totally kicked in the second half - that's what it boiled down to. It was a horseshit performance in the second half. Horseshit. I'm totally embarrassed and totally ashamed. Coaching did a horrible job. The players did a horrible job. We got our ass kicked in that second half. It sucked. It stunk."

But by far his most famous post-game rant, thanks in part to Coors Light commercials, was the one on November 25, 2001 when he was head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Following a loss to the 49ers and what had already begun as an angry press conference, a reported asked Mora what he thought of the Colts' playoff chances, to which he famously responded in a distinctly high pitched tone, "What's that? Uh -- Playoffs? Don't talk about -- playoffs? You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game."

#1 Dennis Green - "They are who we thought they were!"

On October 16th, 2006 Arizona Cardinal's coach Dennis Green unleashed the all time best post-game tirade by an NFL coach. Following a game against the Chicago Bears where his team blew a 20 point lead in the fourth quarter, Green took the podium and screamed, " the Bears are what we thought they were, they're what we thought they were. We played them in preseason, who the hell takes a third game of the preseason like it's bullshit, Bullshit!? We played them in the third game, everybody played three quarters; the Bears are who we thought they were! And that's the way we took the damn field. Now if you wanna crown them, then crown their ass! But they are who we thought they were, and we let 'em off the hook!" Green then stormed off the podium having sealed his fate as a soon-to-be-unemployed NFL head coach.

Sources:

http://postgamerants.blogspot.com

Dennis Green - wikipedia.org

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/scorecard/08/05/interviews/

Ostler, Scott. "One Singular Sensation" The San Francisco Chronicle. 10/27/08

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/26/SP5713OLBB.DTL