Mike Nolan always has an excuse.

It’s like some kind of mental block with the guy. He never takes responsibility for anything. Sure, he says he takes responsibility — all sports people say that but they don’t mean it. It’s either he had his headset off or the play call was brilliant but the players screwed up or he didn’t know the rule or the officials incorrectly charged him with a timeout or the Niners’ record is a still-hopeful 2-4 and there are plenty of winnable games out there — really? — or when writers really pin him down in press conferences he commences to babble, to speak some language that sounds like English but isn’t.

As reader Gary in Santa Rosa pointed out the coach is supposed to know the rules backward and forward. You get the feeling Nolan gets confused at crucial times, it’s like a door slams shut in his brain. And he is incapable of changing his behavior. That’s the other part of never taking responsibility — because you never do anything wrong you don’t have to change.

I like Nolan as a guy. I really do. But I think he gets between himself and winning. And if he ultimately fails, as seems likely, you wonder what John York was thinking about when he hired Nolan. You wonder about this franchise. Who’s going to take responsibility for it?

— Lowell