It was impossible to not admire Mike Singletary when watching him patrol the middle of Chicago’s defense while I was growing up.

The constant camera shots of his wide eyes eventually got a bit nauseating, but the passion with which he played the game was impressive.

But his statements and actions since he ascended to the head coaching position in San Francisco have been nothing short of bizarre.

At first it was a little bit refreshing. When he banished underachieving tight end Vernon Davis to the locker room during his first game as the head man it seemed as though football had found a coach that could keep today’s highly-paid players in line. His postgame speech might have raised an eyebrow or two – he hit the issue and lashed out at Davis a little more than one might have expected him to, but it seemed as though he was making a point.

Then it came out that he mooned his team as part of an inspirational halftime talk. Hmm. Okay. Weird … but he’s just developing as a coach.

Now he’s virtually written Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford off of his draft list because Stafford reportedly didn’t want to go into detailed discussions about the divorce of his parents?

I understand that NFL teams invest millions of dollars on these rookies and that psychological evaluations are a part of the scouting process. But does he really think Stafford’s allegedly unresolved issues with his parents’ split is going to affect him while he’s trying to unload a 20-yard out with a blitzing safety and two defensive ends bearing down on him?

“If you’re going to look at drafting a guy in the first round, and you’re going to pay him millions of dollars, and asking him about a divorce about his parents, if that’s going to be an issue, uhhh, then you know what, maybe he doesn’t belong here,” Singletary later told a radio station.

If Stafford had a history of kicking puppies or lighting fire to babies I could maybe see taking the temperature on Stafford’s relationship with his parents.

If he’d had issues with his teammates at Georgia or if he’d been a heavy drinker or he’d disappeared for days on end from his team, then sure.

But by most reports Stafford has been a good teammate. And while he hasn’t always been consistently good in big games, he has always shown up. Isn’t it possible that he just doesn’t like talking about the fact that his parents got divorced?

Can’t a person not like talking about his parents’ divorce without it making him appear as a mental case?

As one radio talk show host said, keep the parents on opposite sides of the stadium when they both show up for the games and Stafford will probably be able to deal with the situation just fine.

I think Singletary is in the wrong on this one. Psychological testing can reveal character flaws in certain cases, I have no doubt. But using this issue to take him off the draft board – well, do what you want. But I think it’s a bizarre decision.

And it’s becoming a pattern for the guy San Francisco brought in to turn things around. Singletary leaves me scratching my head.