Vin’s TC Report - 08.01.07

Vini is back with another report from TC. Vini was at Wednesday’s open practice.

- Today’s afternoon practice, which was open to the public, was not padded.

- Those who did not participate in the afternoon session included Derek Smith, Frank Gore, and Bryant Young. Darrell Jackson and Michael Robinson had baseball caps on, but did do a few of the walkthroughs. Arnaz Battle did not participate much either.

- The team did some QB and WR pass route drills. The biggest thing that stood out here was that Alex Smith’s deep ball, in his 3rd year, looks really good. All his deep passes had some nice air to them and fell in a position that allowed the WRs to make a play or get into position to make the catch. Alex also showed a nice zip to all his passes, although initially some of his passes were wobbly. He tighted those throws up though with more and more reps.

- With Jackson and Battle watching, Ashley Lelie, Taylor Jacobs, Jason Hill, and Marcus Maxwell saw a lot of reps. Lelie looked nice in his cuts and you can see that he has great deep speed. He also made a nice one handed catch on deep out.

- The WR that stood out the most was Taylor Jacobs. Today was not Nate Clements day against him. Although, I wouldn’t take that to too much heart since there wasn’t much contact at this practice (non-padded). But, none the less, Taylor Jacobs got by Nate Clements on one on one drills between CBs and WRs on two or three different occassions. Clements just shook his head in disbelief. Then, on another one on one situation, Jacobs beat Nate Clements on a go route, but Alex Smith overthrew the pass. He knew he had an easy, money type of TD with that one too.

- Nate Clements continued to look strong at playing the run. He can close the corner against a run or dumpoff VERY quickly.

- Brandon Williams had a nice practice. Even though he’s a small guy, he didn’t seem to have any trouble going into traffic and making catches in the middle. However, he needs to be more consistent. He had 1 or 2 easy drops. On one of those he fell to the ground and Manny Lawson just came over and hugged him. That was funny.

- Tarrell Brown continued to impress. He was tight in coverage and had a pass which was knocked down today. In fact, the entire defensive backfield had a good day. On a lot of the passing drills, they forced the Qbs to check down underneath and kept the deep throws to a minimum on 11 on 11 drills.

- Patrick Willis continued to flash his speed. Though he missed a pass knockdown, he showed great quickness and closing speed in getting to the ball. His pursuit and closing speed looks flat out scary good.

- On the offensive line front, Larry Allen made his presence known. On drills with the offensive linemen I believe he shoved Kwame Harris as the two were working on drills. He also looks lighter than last year. But when I say that I mean it in the sense that he’s about as light as a 340 lbs guy can look. He was running around in drills and looked way more active in practice this year than I remember him last year. Last year, in most practices, he’d mostly just walk around the field with a trainer. Today, he was active and in on many of the drills involving offensive linemen.

- Vernon Davis continued to have a strong camp. He caught passes very well and looked dangerous in the middle of the field. On some offensive sets he was lined up as WR. He’s also a firecracker in terms of his intensity on the field. When he caught a TD in red zone drills, he let the defense know. But it was all in good fun and more of a show for the crowd, which all clapped and cheered.

- Marcus Maxwell can really beat the jam. On DB vs WR drills, he looked great getting off the line and into his route. But once he beat the jam and got off of his line, he stumbled on his route and didn’t show exceptional, breakaway speed which lead to an overthrow. He did have a strong practice though and looked good working inside the field.

- Thomas Clayton and Maurice Hicks took a lot of reps in today’s practices. Clayton looked great in his cuts and looks like a guy that could make people miss once he gets into the open field. Maurice Hicks looked fast and explosive in hitting the hole as well.

- Joe Staley held the edge very nicely in terms of pass protection on 11 on 11 drills. He played with the second stringers primarily, but you can see his quickness.

- Andy Lee continues to be a punting God . Today, he once again dominated the punt battle and was booming some punts. I think Andy Lee has been working out with Vernon Davis. He’s really looking great out there. His competition, Ken Parrish, did not fair well at all though. Besides having some really weak kicks, Parrish also shanked a punt into the stands, where the ball promptly hit a woman in the face and caused her nose to bleed. EMTs were called in to help the woman.

- It may have just been the kind of drills and what the team was specifically practicing, but there were A LOT of dumpoffs and shorter passes. A few too many. It could also just be a case of the 49ers secondary being good, which when they roll out their starting D, does look stout.

~ by 49ersNews on August 2, 2007.