Quick followup on the 49ers strong safety position

by David Fucillo on Oct 14, 2009 8:43 PM PDT in San Francisco 49ers News

Earlier today the Chargers released starting strong safety Clinton Hart. Given Michael Lewis's concussion last weekend, folks were quick to start inquiring about the 49ers acquiring Hart. So, I thought I'd take advantage of modern technology and get some answers. For those who haven't used Twitter, you can send people messages to which they can respond on their own Twitter page. Matt Maiocco has been good in answering folks questions when they tweet them over to him, so I thought I'd shoot him a tweet:

Haven't heard a thing. SS Michael Lewis expected to be back soon. RT @NinersNation Is SF going to talk to recently released Clinton Hart?
14 minutes ago from web

Maiocco had some more details in his bye week injury report post earlier today:

Singletary said Lewis' concussion symptoms cleared quickly on Sunday. He has experienced three concussions since mid-August, so the 49ers are taking no chances, Singletary said.

"(Lewis) was ready to go; he could've played," Singletary said. "Twenty years ago he would've been smelling smelling salts and been back in the game. But that wasn't the case."

Next week will be especially interesting in determining what we can expect from Lewis going forward. We had discussions about this on Monday, but given this updated information I thought it was worth bringing it back up. Oh, and for those who want Hart, Rotoworld had some interesting comments:

Bolts GM A.J. Smith doesn't make many personnel mistakes, but handing Hart a six-year, $18M extension in 2008 was one of them. Hart simply couldn't cover anyone, loved biting on play-action fakes, and completely lost his confidence. Steve Gregory and rookie Kevin Ellison are options to step in.

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Comments

I think this is an underrated issue

Lewis is just a beast in the running game, while not appearing to be as much of a liability in pass defense anymore. Watching the game on Sun., the Texans were able to execute some runs to the outside that are almost always stuffed by Lewis, instead we were treated to Roman floating around near the end of the successful run almost every time.

So its great news to hear he’s coming back, but I’m all ears about possible replacements, have to be wary of depending on him going forward, they just aren’t messing around with head injuries anymore. Stupid Kyle Turley had to ruin the party with his silly complaints about “blackouts” and “deteriorating mental condition”.

by Stoned Slacker on Oct 27, 2009 12:10 PM PDT reply actions