Okay here are my thoughts from Day 3, which are late because of the outage! Dang Boris!
-To answer your question Chili, the starting 5 have consistently been Bulaga, Sitton, EDS, Lang, Newhouse. Obviously Bahktiari has been impressive and Barclay is supposedly in the mix, but I fully anticipate that is the starting 5 they will start the season with. Newhouse hasn't been horrible either, he's playing RT about as well as he played LT in my opinion. He has had some good blocks and has gotten beat a couple times. I don't know if he will finish the season as the starter though.
-Donte "Doc" Savage was at it again before practice, working out on his own. He had kind of rough day in the team periods I saw. He's listed at 250, but everyone around me agreed he looked bulkier than that. He struggled in coverage, but he did get a solid win against Newhouse in one of the team periods. He's getting some opportunities with Moses out.
-Mulumba also looks like a keeper. He's a raw athlete at this point and he got smoked in coverage once by one of the TEs, but he's clearly a very natural athlete.
-Eddie Lacy and Jonathan Franklin are going to be quite a tandem IMO. Lacy runs so hard and confidently, it's such a contrast to the way Green and Starks run. Green and Starks seem to almost hesitate and wait for an opportunity to open up, Lacy just goes where he's told to go. He has no misconceptions about what his game is it seems, he doesn't try and juke or stutter step, he just barrels into the line. Franklin is the opposite, he's really quick and shifty. He actually reminds me of a smaller (in weight, not height) Ahman Green. Franklin runs low and some of the moves and cuts he makes look so effortless. He's a natural ball carrier and he's going to be exceptional on draws and screens. I think he might even excel if they put him as the Kick Returner.
-Chad Morton seems like a good guy and a good coach. He had his punt returners catching balls right in front of the bleachers and he actually got the crowd involved. He told us to really boo hard at his guys when they didn't make a clean catch. The pressure really affected the guys I think because some of the camp bodies had some bad drops. Franklin did fine and Cobb was automatic, but the younger guys like Tyrone Walker, Nixon, and Myles White struggled.
-The CB pecking order had a little shake up today as it seems Micah Hyde is ahead of Davon House. Hyde got most of the reps with the 1's while House came in with the 2's. To me that's great news because I think House is having a really good camp. With Tramon and Hayward out, guys like Hyde and House are getting really valuable reps. None of the starting CBs disappointed (Shields, Hyde, House), they were all over receivers today, Shields in particular had a really great breakup where he had to dive for it.
-Perry looked really fast in some of the drills. He looks more confident out there and looks like the guy we saw at USC. Very optimistic about him.
-BJ Coleman had another rough day. Had a missed toss (don't know if it was his fault or Starks) and couldn't seem to get the ball off fast enough. He had some missed throws also that he should have gotten.
-Morgan Burnett had a nice break up on a fade to Finley from Rodgers. Finley responded a little later with a really nice TD grab. As I've said before, Finley seems more focused and maybe more mature.
-Quarless looked fast on one catch I saw, seems like he's back to full speed.
-Stoneburner seemed to rebound today with a couple nice catches and nice deep catch. It's the first day he's really stood out.
-Barclay had another rough day at Center. Today it was bad snaps. He and Van Roten both had bad snaps. On the flip side, rookie Patrick Lewis snapped fine, but he's been abused in drills all week. Needless to say, we better hope EDS stays healthy.
-They continue to do practice against nothing but the Pistol. Pistol, Read Option, etc. Everything San Fran threw at them is what they're preparing for. It was interesting to note that every single play either an ILB or OLB simulated a hit on the QB. Kaepernick is going to have a long day, because these LBs are head hunting.
-McMillan seems ahead of MD Jennings at this point. He's getting more reps with the 1's and seems to be doing fine. He had a nice breakup on a pass today. He's been in the box more while Burnett is a little deeper.
-It's interesting to me which injured players stick with their positions. Jerel Worthy is always with the DL, even in drills. Dez Moses and Nate Palmer are always with the OLBs no matter what. Mike Neal, Tramon, and Hayward seem to kind of hang around on their own, wondering around practice. I was a little disappointed in those guys because they're at practice, on the field, but they're not with their groups.
-There's a clear difference between Rodgers and the other 2 QBs. He would come in, throw a laser to a receiver or TE for a TD, and the other two would come in and look weak compared to him. I know he's the top QB in the NFL and they're not even close, but there's a big drop off.
-The WR group looks fairly set. Cobb, Nelson, Jones, Ross, and Boykin seem to be clearly the top 5. Those are the only guys who truly ran with the #! offense. Ross actually doesn't look too bad as a receiver either, he's very fast and seems to run good routes. The 2 draft picks (Dorsey, Johnson) have been injured so I doubt they're in the mix right now. There's a lot of camp left though.
-The power running personnel grouping was interesting. They brought in that beefy rookie FB Amosah, with Eddie Lacy behind him. It looked pretty tough. Haven't seen a lot of Amosah to know if he's going to make the team, but he's big, bulky, and looks like a real sledgehammer of a blocker. I'm going to be watching him in preseason games closely.
-Weather was PERFECT again! Great day for football!
Personal Rant:
-I heard some lady complain when one of the coaches dropped a loud G-D during a drill. She said she didn't want her kid to hear that kind of language and that the coaches and players need to clean it up. I wanted to tell her that she needed to think about that before bringing her kid to practice. These guys get fired up, they're passionate, and they let stuff fly out of their mouths. She should have known that was a possibility going into practice and if it was a problem then she shouldn't have brought her kid. The kids don't really seem to have fun anyway, they get impatient and don't really want to sit and watch. Moral of this story: these guys drop a lot of cuss words and your kid is probably going to hear it, either get over it or don't come. That kid will get on the internet and learn those words in a couple years anyway![/END RANT]
