Football Outsiders: 49ers team health in 2010

it has to be tough to stay healthy and play singletary football. i think, just preparing to play for the samurai is a good head start toward preparing for an nfl season. with a good s&c coach, we stand to limit a lot of the nagging injuries.

note to coach: if you don’t want to lose gore for any length of time, don’t run him into 9 man fronts.

Depth back in the days of Eddie D was a key ingredient to the winning ways of the Niners teams of the 80’s. They always seemed to have someone who could step right in when there was an injury. Nowadays with salary caps and the increase in teams diluting the pool of available talent, quality depth is a luxury that almost no team can afford. To have a good player to backup your starters is about the best you can do, because if you have a starting quality player they are either starting or other teams are looking to acquire them to start on their team. You just dont see a lot of quality players who have starting potential sitting on the bench waiting for their chance to come in and play. So really, it all boils down to not getting the major injuries and doing the best you can to patch the holes created by major injuries. There is no way to forecast catastrophic injuries. Generally every team has one or two because of the violent nature of the sport. Losing Joe Staley really hurt the Niners last season, and potentially kept the Niners out of the playoffs. Joe’s backup did an admirable job, but there is a reason backups are not starters. So when you have your front line guy go down, it is difficult to continue to compete and have the same flexibility and play calling ability you have with your starters. And if you have a major player go down who makes the calls for that unit, it can really be a crippling event. The Niners have depth as good as any team in the NFC West, but any major injuries will cause major disruption to their playoff chances. I believe the Niners have a playoff caliber team on paper. If the rookie linemen are able to get up to speed and start the regular season, the Niners will have veteran depth to step in if either falters or gets injured. That isn’t the case for other teams in the West. I am excited to see the Niners new look offensive line and I hope that the rookies are able to contribute relatively soon seeing as they are 1st round draft picks. New Offensive line coaches Mike Solari and Ray Brown must be excited with the level of talent they have to work with when you include the rookies and the veterans the Niners have on the offensive line. If Alex Smith is given time to throw the ball, he will make plays. Smith has more and better weapons this year than he has ever had. Eventually the rookie linemen will get the hang of pass protection and the Niners OL could be pivotal in the success of the team. Gore will have more holes, Smith more time, and the team more points hopefully.