Say this for Dennis Erickson -- he's more than the 49ers had led us to think they'd get. And that may be enough to get the angry villagers with the torches away from the parapets and back to their homes.

	Can Dennis Erickson take the 49ers to the Super Bowl? Time will tell. For now, at least, he takes the pressure off the 49ers' front office.

At least for now.

After a largely clubfooted firing and cloven-hoofed search, the 49ers dropped Erickson, the mightiest Beaver of them all, out of the sky and into the third -- or fourth -- biggest chair in the building.

That his name had only appeared in the "Other Possible Candidates Include ..." before this should come as no surprise, because the 49ers behaved as though they never saw the Steve Mariucci firing coming in the first place. This is an odd stance for the team to take, since it had been undermining him with a backchannel campaign for the better part of two years.

But it eventually worked, and Mariucci was forced to take another job with more power and influence -- and only at more than twice his San Francisco salary.

The poor sap.

What bothered the locals far more than the team ridding itself of a coach with a 60-percent cure rate, though, was the fact that owner John York and general manager Terry Donahue seemed to be going about their search for a new coach with all the direction of a sailor on leave.

Other than rehiring offensive coordinator Greg Knapp, the 49ers essentially enraged the deluded locals, who thought they should have had a grand plan for the Post-Mariucci Era.

If there was a plan, nobody was convinced. Neither defensive coordinator Jim Mora The Younger, Greg Blache nor Ted Cottrell warmed anyone's cockles, and the more the 49ers didn't act, the less they seemed to know what they wanted.

The only thought that kept people interested was the notion that Donahue, as a college lifer, was going to wait until letter-of-intent day to start working that side of the street. People threw out Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops' name, but Stoops said he wanted no part in the mess. People suggested Washington's Rick Neuheisel, but Neuheisel said he wasn't contacted and in any event wasn't going to take a pay cut for less say and more grief.

That left, well, Dennis Erickson, the man who rebuilt Oregon State, gilded the lily at Miami before that and jump-started Washington State before that. True, he made no grand strides with the Seattle Seahawks in four seasons, but other than Chuck Knox, neither has anyone else.

But he had several things going for him. First, he and Donahue were fairly close, and Donahue was allowed to hire as long as said hire came cheaply, obediently and without ambition. Second, he was a name, at least of sorts, more successful than not. Third, he presumably addressed the oddly functional 49er offense, which needs a considerable infusion of speed.

And fourth, he was somebody, the first somebody the 49ers have had in a month.

This is a job that could have had a long line of suitors, given the team's record and history. It isn't utterly bankrupt on the talent front, although it could never have been considered a Super Bowl contender at any point during the Mariucci Era. And there was Bill Walsh as the guiding godhead, always there for a consult and a mind-expanding chat.

That was the outside view. Closer to home, the 49ers had come to resemble the worst kind of operation -- one dominated by aggressive thrift and internal politics rather than football.

Indeed, the great argument here is whether York or Donahue masterminded Erickson's hire, when the real truth is that it shouldn't matter. Will Erickson do in San Francisco as he did in Pullman, Miami and Corvallis, or will he do as he did in Seattle?

That is a football question, not a political one. Now that it has been made clear that Erickson works for Donahue rather than with him, the new coach can tackle the rebuild on quarterback Jeff Garcia, the continued schmoozing of wide receiver Terrell Owens, and all the other things that the 49ers want their coach to do.

If he can manage all of that and still win, the fans will come around. They are an easy sell, as long as the 49ers stay at 13-3 or above. If not, the villagers will remain restive.

Dennis Erickson is a name, but he has to be more than that. Much more than that.

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com