Yesterday, 49erswebzone.com posted its annual April Fools story and it went off better than any previous year. The story about Cutler being traded to San Francisco for three draft picks, Alex Smith and Mark Roman was indeed fake. While we apologize to anyone who may have embarrassed themselves by jumping for joy (or becoming furious that the team gave up so much) and spreading the word, that was kind of the point.
In the past, we have managed to fool a number of people including one sports writer who wrote an entire article about our prank topic. This year was no different. The story was mentioned on radio station KNBR in the bay area and Sports 1140 in Sacramento. As mentioned in The Mercury News article, anyone that read the whole article or even looked around the page for a bit should have figured out that the story was fake. Don't say we didn't try. Read the whole thing if you have not already. You will see what we mean.
The story, written by staff writer Oscar Aparicio, also made it to a number of online message boards with many of those posting actually believing the story (until they were corrected by others who actually read the whole thing). A quick Google search revealed that.
Also, for anyone that thought that your ability to post was broken yesterday ... yes, we did make it so that anything your posted appeared backwards. But it only appeared backwards to you and not to any other viewer. Your posts should be going in the correct direction now ... except for those who actually started posting backwards so they could view their posts the correct way.
Past years April Fools stories have included the following headlines:
2002: Mariucci leaving for the Detroit Lions
2003: Terrell Owens being traded to the Denver Broncos
2004: Terrell Owens trade to Eagles nullified due to faulty court evidence
2005: Chargers deal quarterback Rivers to San Francisco
2006: Packers agree to send Javon Walker to San Francisco
2007: Texans deal Johnson to 49ers for draft picks, Battle
2007: York looks to turn over control of 49ers to son
2008: Dolphins to deal Taylor to 49ers
