Is Tim Kawakami the definitive football sage?

After all, Tim called EVERYTHING that was happening with the 49ers. He sensed Jed York was flushing the franchise down the toilet. While many 49ers fans questioned his agenda, he foresaw the demise of the team just as the decline was beginning.

Every concern, doubt, suspicion he had about the Niners has basically come true.

Which begs only one question...

Is he now on the approved writers list?

Tim says what's needed to be said, and isn't afraid to ask the right kind of questions. I can respect that. It may be possible Tim wants whats best for the team but see's the truth. While also despising Jed at the same time and why not?

Peaches is spot on in regards to what the issue is among fans.

I do take some enjoyment in watching the gullible get duped by Kawakami, but he's definitely for the cheap seats. Equal parts Cowherd and Jim Cramer, really.

ringless":2t0orokx said:

Tim says what's needed to be said, and isn't afraid to ask the right kind of questions. I can respect that. It may be possible Tim wants whats best for the team but see's the truth. While also despising Jed at the same time and why not?

Peaches is spot on in regards to what the issue is among fans.

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Will respond to this b/c I think you're a pretty level headed guy.

I think what happens with Kawakami is that people outside the bay area who haven't regularly read him get duped into believing him when prattles on about how right he always is.

He doesn't have any sources. He doesn't have any contacts. He's a columnist. He just says crazy stuff all the time.

Before last year Kawakami was insisting that Baalke and Harbaugh had repaired their relationship and the 9ers were going to go to the Super Bowl. Then when the season started to go south he started saying that he had always been saying that and had predicted the 9ers downfall back when the didn't sign Owen Mareric. :lol:

Same story this year. He was claiming that York and Baalke talking to the media proved that Tomsula was a stool pigeon (if Tomsula had any control he'd be the face of the franchise), and that the 9ers would be carried by their defense and probably wouldn't be good but wouldn't be bad either.

Now that the 9ers are awful and Baalke and York aren't talking to the media (because they've never done so during the season, save for Jeb's apology tweet after the loss to the Hawks last year) he's blathering on about how they're throwing Tomsula to the fire and SHOULD be talking to the media. It's why people who grew up with him around and know his schtick just roll their eyes at him.

He's been doing this exact same thing with the 9ers, Raiders, and Warriors since I was a kid. Everything with him is ALWAYS a conspiracy that goes right to the top, and after the fact he just pretends the 90% of nonsense he's spouted never happened and crows over and over again whenever his @ss gets some sunlight.


To be clear, I'm not defending the suckiness of the 9ers, or York, or Kaepernick at all, but as a messanger Kawakami is truly a hack. He's out for clicks, and he gets them, but every time you read Kawakami crowing after the fact, you have to remember that the guy has spent the past 20 years riding waves and claiming he started them.

TL;DR since I was a kid the Kawakami formula has been to basically never say anything of even remote interest about any Bay Area sports teams that are playing well, and to instead just jump from to team to team based on whomever is playing poorly and spam with wild hot takes about conspiracies and ineptitude that he's "always" known about.

The problem is that people forget that for the few years the 9ers were good Kawakami had nothing to say about them and was busy tantruming about how Joe Lacob buying the Warriors had doomed them for the next 20 years. :lol:

Queue Marvin and Popeye mind meld in 3... 2...

:lol: :lol:

I don't see any reason for Marv to recreate this post we've both already recreated numerous times.

I think the problem is that some people for some reason think that folks like Marvin and I don't like Kawakami because he's critical of the 9ers, which just misses the point. The 9ers are awful. Why would I care that someone acknowledges that?

The difference between Kawakami and the 9ers is that sometimes the 9ers are good. Kawakami has been a total hack since I was kid.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I've been in the Bay Area for the last 5 years, and Kawakami has been a troll for all 5 years I've been here. He reminds me a little bit of incarceratedbob - just throw everything at the wall, see what sticks, and then claim you 'called it' after the fact. It's fun as a Seahawks fan to revel a little bit in the demise of the Niners, but Kawakami is not a reliable source for anything. He generates clicks, and so he keeps his job.

Popeyejones":qo0udcbu said:

Now that the 9ers are awful and Baalke and York aren't talking to the media (because they've never done so during the season, save for Jeb's apology tweet after the loss to the Hawks last year) he's blathering on about how they're throwing Tomsula to the fire and SHOULD be talking to the media. It's why people who grew up with him around and know his schtick just roll their eyes at him.

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Like a lot of your post, Popeye, this is simply not true. Last season, Baalke appeared on a weekly radio show where he could be pressed for answers. This season, Baalke has shown about as much accountability as a fart in the wind.

^^^^ Oh, you're right, they did have the contract with 95.7 last year. That's true.

In any case though, it doesn't change the basic point (not that you care).

But he is always saying so many positive things about the Golden State Warriors and how that organization is handling things. Same with Raiders lately, I have seen so many tweets where he is basically saying that Raiders are on the right track to build a good team.

SeahawksFanForever":u3cd9m96 said:

But he is always saying so many positive things about the Golden State Warriors and how that organization is handling things. Same with Raiders lately, I have seen so many tweets where he is basically saying that Raiders are on the right track to build a good team.

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Yeah, of course he is, because they're playing well. And Warriors fans and Raiders fans still can't stand the guy because they know he's a total hack and as soon as their teams aren't winning or on the upswing he'll be back to his usual nonsense about the grand conspiracies and how he knew all along.

I mean, the 49ers "whisper campaign" stuff is really a pretty lazy retread from him, as he got his first national exposure from doing the same thing with the Raiders in 2008 (when Raiders Senior Exec John Herrera threatened to knock him out on camera for making stuff up). As he did with Harbaugh, he tries to goad people into going off on him, and then spends the next month writing about himself.

theENGLISHseahawk":15nlsbcb said:

After all, Tim called EVERYTHING that was happening with the 49ers. He sensed Jed York was flushing the franchise down the toilet. While many 49ers fans questioned his agenda, he foresaw the demise of the team just as the decline was beginning.

Every concern, doubt, suspicion he had about the Niners has basically come true.

Which begs only one question...

Is he now on the approved writers list?

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No ...... the posts of Popeyejones clearly screams that Tim will never make the approved list.

Clearly Tim is like a burr under the saddle of Popeyejones.

Popeyejones":21ooppcp said:

Yeah, of course he is, because they're playing well.

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So what you're saying is... he praises well run organisations and gives due credit when it's deserved.

And when he predicts the absolute shambolic mess that was about to occur in San Francisco inch perfectly despite many contrasting opinions...

He's just a troll who doesn't know anything.

Right.

Sounds to me like Tim has got his finger well and truly on the pulse of Bay Area sports.

Well done Tim.

Popeyejones":2n0xbhxf said:

Before last year Kawakami was insisting that Baalke and Harbaugh had repaired their relationship and the 9ers were going to go to the Super Bowl. Then when the season started to go south he started saying that he had always been saying that and had predicted the 9ers downfall back when the didn't sign Owen Mareric. :lol:

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Do you happen to have a link for this? I cannot find any verification for it, and I remember some of the articles he wrote about how Ballake, Jed, and Co. wanted Harbaugh gone before last season, tried to use him as trade bait, and would eventually force him out.

theENGLISHseahawk":59a9c0h6 said:

Popeyejones":59a9c0h6 said:

Yeah, of course he is, because they're playing well.

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So what you're saying is... he praises well run organisations and gives due credit when it's deserved.

And when he predicts the absolute shambolic mess that was about to occur in San Francisco inch perfectly despite many contrasting opinions...

He's just a troll who doesn't know anything.

Right.

Sounds to me like Tim has got his finger well and truly on the pulse of Bay Area sports.

Well done Tim.

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Three quick things:

1) Yeah, TBF I think you're probably the target demo he caters to.

2) Nah, it's not that he praises well run orgs, it's that he basically doesn't have any reason for existence when teams are winning. It's why a guys like Kawakami only exist in big sports markets with a lot of teams, and why Seattle doesn't have a Kawakami type. (In the past on .net I've compared the existence of Kawakami to ecological niche partitioning; unless you have 8-10 outlets all covering the same team there's not really room for a Kawakami or a Cohn to exist, and the Bay Area has seven major professional sports teams and a ton of people covering them for a like a dozen different outlets).

3) No, only those in the cheap seats or who don't know what they're talking about believe that Kawakami is predictive. One has to have not regularly read Kawakami to think he predicted the downfall of the 9ers. It's just a baseless claim. I'm sure he threw it out there in between throwing ever other possible scenario out there, but again, it's a Jim Cramer trick. Kawakami is instead a trend follower. He hedges incessantly and then when things go on the downswing he takes poor performance and rewrites it as as equal parts Greek tragedy and espionage thriller (which he invariably places himself at the center of).

It's why, even when the Warriors are winning and Kawakami is writing platittudes about the Warriors winning, Warriors fans (for the most part, not the total mouth breathers) still dismiss him as a total hack.

hawknation2015":320a57p1 said:

Popeyejones":320a57p1 said:

Before last year Kawakami was insisting that Baalke and Harbaugh had repaired their relationship and the 9ers were going to go to the Super Bowl. Then when the season started to go south he started saying that he had always been saying that and had predicted the 9ers downfall back when the didn't sign Owen Mareric. :lol:

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Do you happen to have a link for this? I cannot find any verification for it, and I remember some of the articles he wrote about how Ballake, Jed, and Co. wanted Harbaugh gone before last season, tried to use him as trade bait, and would eventually force him out.

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Sure.

49ers are going to win the Super Bowl last year:

http://www.mercurynews.com/tim-kawakami ... super-bowl

At the time of Marecic nothing non-signing for Kawakami it was just part of the very good creative tension between Baalke and Harbaugh that makes the 9ers successful:

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2 ... ationship/

Then a few months later this was not an example of their wonderful creative tension, but was a breaking point. :lol:

Note that at this time according to Kawakami Baalke is still the better one to keep of the two because he's an excellent personnel guy and Harbaugh would feud with anybody. Overall it's a pretty damning piece about Harbaugh (this all of course goes down the memory hole for Kawakami as now that the 9ers are really bad he claims to have always known that Baalke and York are the problem, not Harbaugh, and getting rid of Harbaugh was the first step in the conspiracy :lol: )

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2 ... don-smith/

Can't find the repaired relationship post in my limited searching, but from these others, if you have any sincere interest in understanding my point, you get the gist. It was from the pre-season or off-season last year, a little before the Super Bowl prediction if you want to look for it.

Popeyejones":3bt02ues said:

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2013/12/17/49ers-creative-tension-the-complex-competitive-and-winning-jim-harbaugh-trent-baalke-relationship/

Then a few months later this was not an example of their wonderful creative tension, but was a breaking point. :lol:

Note that at this time according to Kawakami Baalke is still the better one to keep of the two because he's an excellent personnel guy and Harbaugh would feud with anybody. Overall it's a pretty damning piece about Harbaugh (this all of course goes down the memory hole for Kawakami as now that the 9ers are really bad he claims to have always known that Baalke and York are the problem, not Harbaugh, and getting rid of Harbaugh was the first step in the conspiracy :lol: )

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And now brainwashed Whiner fans -- who HATE Kawakami and rejected all of his predictions that Harbaugh would be fired -- think of it as a "pretty damning piece."

Got to enjoy the irony there. :lol:

^^^^

Um, I think maybe you meant to type "thanks for taking the time to provide the links I asked for" or "oh, okay, I see what you're talking about", but instead you ended up writing this bizarre non-sequitur that doesn't even make any sense.

What happened?

Popeyejones":llsksjem said:

^^^^

Um, I think maybe you meant to type "thanks for taking the time to provide the links I asked for" or "oh, okay, I see what you're talking about", but instead you ended up writing this bizarre non-sequitur that doesn't even make any sense.

What happened?

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Hypocrisy is often a two-way street. Let me explain in a way that you will understand:

You harshly disparage Kawakami for being inconsistent in his appraisal of Harbaugh, while at the same time acknowledging that your own appraisal of Harbuagh has changed (and, more specifically, your view of Kawakami's criticisms of Harbaugh). You now refer to an article of his, which you originally dismissed, as a "pretty damning piece" -- 'damning' meaning incriminating.

That is the problem with criticizing someone else's supposed inconsistencies or hypocrisies . . . you have ignored your own.

I think if Kawakami covered the Seahawks during a similar fall from grace, I'd expect at least half of .net to hate him. Few people appreciate the bearer of bad news, least of all homers and diehards.

But from my distant perspective, I'd say he's done a 1st rate job as a journalist.