Here is the opening to my column about the 49ers and their problem with place kicking:

SANTA CLARA

Jim Harbaugh was in his Jimbo mood on Monday. When he’s happy and everything is right with the world and he flashes the million-dollar grin, that’s the Jimbo mood.

Of course, Harbaugh has several other moods — they might even be personalities — and some of those are terse or gloomy or withdrawn. Hardly Jimbo Jim.

But on Monday, Jimbo visited with the media. The conversation naturally got around to David Akers, the Niners’ biggest problem. Jimbo being Jimbo, he didn’t seem fazed that Akers is the worst kicker in the league. He said kickers go through slumps. That insight right there showed empathy, and one of Jimbo’s most attractive qualities is empathy. We assume Jimbo was not the Jim Harbaugh who handled Alex Smith or Brandon Jacobs, whom the 49ers waived Monday after a short, unhappy tenure on the team and an unspecified transgression that resulted in loss of pay for three games.

To read the full column click here

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