And so the 49ers first mini-camp is in the books.  Seeing as that's a sizable chunk of the offseason, now seemed like as good a time as any to check back in with Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee.  Matt covers the 49ers for the Bee, including an fun blog at the Bee's website, and he's been very willing to provide his insight when Niners Nation has questions.  We still have the team's training activities in June, followed by training camp, but now seemed like a good time get a lay of the land.  Thanks again to Matt for taking the time to answer my questions.

NN: One of the reasons I wanted to talk with you is there has been a lot of questions at Niners Nation about Manny Lawson and the timetable for his return.  You mentioned in your post Sunday that Lawson feels ready but the team trainers wanted him to wait another month.  Does that mean he'll be full go at the beginning of the organized team activities in June?

MB: Lawson certainly feels like he’s at, or at least very close to, 100 percent. But it’s up to the training staff and they’re obviously taking a cautious approach. If Lawson does take part in the OTAs, I expect him to be eased in – not full bore from the beginning. In the meantime, Tully Banta-Cain and Parys Haralson have been manning both outside linebacker positions. That’s good. Haralson improves with every repetition he gets…

NN: It sounds like Dashon Goldson made a nice little impact over the weekend.  Obviously it's a small sample size and still way too early to infer anything, but what kind of role do you see Goldson fitting into in 2008?

MB: Well, he’s part of the team’s dime coverage package. But the fact that Mark Roman got the lion’s share of the work with the radio receiver (green dot on the helmet) over the weekend appears to be a signal that he’s set as the starting free safety.

NN: Since draft day there have been discussions about where Kentwan Balmer would be playing.  He was listed as a nose tackle by ESPN, they've said he'll play some end, and now I've read he'd start at end but transition to nose tackle.  Any ideas or is it going to be a process that will develop as Balmer shows the team what he can do?

MB: Balmer practiced exclusively at left defensive end over the minicamp. Nolan said they didn’t want to throw too much at him too early so they kept him at one spot. Nolan also said the techniques at all three d-line positions are essentially the same and that once Balmer picks up LDE he should be able to learn NT fairly quickly. This is just my reading of the situation, but the fact that Nolan talked so much on draft day about Balmer playing NT may have been a message to Aubrayo Franklin. Franklin hadn’t been part of the offseason conditioning program, and that obviously didn’t please Nolan.

NN: Speaking of the draft, some people were surprised at the decision to not take an outside linebacker prior to the 7th round.  That raised some questions about how much 4-3 we might see mixed in with the 3-4 currently in place.  You had discussed on Friday that Justin Smith lined up a little bit at outside linebacker, but that he didn't know how often that would be happening.  Any word from the coaching staff on that?

MB: Well, the 49ers actually didn’t draft an outside linebacker at all. The seventh rounder, Larry Grant, will play inside for the 49ers. To me, that was surprising. A 3-4 defense depends on its outside linebackers to pressure the quarterback and the 49ers didn’t upgrade that position at all – neither in free agency nor the draft. The hope is that better play along the line will allow the OLBs more room to make plays. … As far as Smith playing linebacker, the coaches did not say how much that would happen. I think the minicamp was designed to see if Smith could do it. To my admittedly untrained eye, he looked kind of slow, or, exactly how you would expect  a 282 pounder to play when asked to stand up.

NN: Along the same lines, it seems like the team will be throwing a lot of different looks at opponents.  Justin Smith is certainly-cut starter.  After that the team has Franklin, Sopoaga, McDonald and Balmer as guys that would seem to have a shot at a lot of playing time.  Then factor in guys like Melvin Oliver and Joe Cohen, among others, who could cut into that.  On the one hand the team will have plenty of opportunities to keep guys fresh, but there's also the question of guys not getting into sync and developing in-game chemistry.  Any ideas on how the team might address that in training camp?

MB: The 49ers will be very chameleon-like this year and they will throw all sorts of fronts at the offense. One of them is a four-man front with Ray McDonald as the right defensive end and Justin Smith next to him at defensive tackle. What I’m saying is that there will be lots of combinations of defensive linemen. I think Oliver and Cohen, however, are going to have a hard time making the final roster. Once they return to action, they will be at the very bottom of the depth chart and would have to play brilliantly to climb it. One of the advantages of a 3-4 defense is that a team doesn’t need to keep as many linemen. I figure the top six right now are Smith, McDonald, Franklin, Fields, Balmer and Sopoaga.

NN: One last question unrelated to the team.  I noticed during the draft and since some shoutouts from Maiocco to you and vice versa.  I can certainly imagine a competition element to your relationship and covering the 49ers for different newspapers.  While you might be competing for readers, with all the time I'd guess you spend around each other is it more of a friendly rivalry?

MB: There’s definitely a competitive element to press trailer, but never to a degree where it’s uncomfortable. I hear stories every once in a while about how ultra competitive the beat used to be in the Walsh-Seifert era and how reporters (who shall remain nameless) would seethe and lash out when they got beat on a story. It’s nothing like that now. In fact, Maiocco has been incredibly generous in sharing a lot of the tricks of the trade with me. All the beat-Maiocco-at-all-costs stuff I write is done with tongue firmly in cheek.

Thanks again to Matt.  Considering the amount of time he spends covering the 49ers, he's certainly a good source for information.  Make sure and check out his 49ers blog.

I figured that with all the questions surrounding the draft yesterday, it was easier to roll out answers and try and at least allow for some clarity. We didn't answer a ton of questions, but there are some things we can be safe in knowing going into the season.

However, the grayer area comes when we start discussing the questions raised as a result of the draft. There are questions raised on both sides of the ball and I'll do my best to answer them for now. However, it's pretty clear the answers won't come until training camp at the very earliest.

1. What defense will this team be playing?

This draft leaves me wondering whether we'll see the 3-4, a 3-4/4-3 hybrid, a bit of the old 3-3-5, or some combination of everything.  The team did not address the supposed outside linebacker need (especially considering Larry Grant will be competing at the inside linebacker position along with special teams).  They've added Balmer to the mix and he appears like he could fit in as an end, a nose tackle, or a defensive tackle if they roll out the 4-3 on occasion.  Justin Smith can play end, but could get into that elephant role discussed previously.  I have no problem with a mix of defenses but it still leaves me curious.

2. What position will Kentwan Balmer play?

Depending on the defense used, he could be anywhere from a nose tackle to a defensive end in the 3-4 to a defensive tackle in the 4-3.  It didn't help that MM and Barrows mentioned him as both potentially filling Bryant Young's role to being the nose tackle and ESPN referred to him repeatedly as a nose tackle.  Any thoughts?  I'm not concerned because I think he could handily develop into any of those roles.  My issue with it deals more with the next question:

3. What of Ray McDonald?

McDonald has some work to do to get more playing time, but I was quite pleased with his development towards the end of last season.  Now, Isaac Sopoaga has been resigned to get time at nose tackle and defensive end.  If Kentwan Balmer plays mostly nose tackle, he'll be splitting time with Aubrayo Franklin meaning Sopoaga gets even more time at defensive end.  Justin Smith is clearly the man on one side.  Or maybe it turns into McDonald being in primarily on passing downs since he's more of a pass rush threat than Balmer.  The one plus to this is that you can mix and match bodies and keep guys fresh.  At the same time, I would imagine it would mess up the line's timing if you're constantly rotating bodies in and out.

4. How will the offensive line shuffle shake out?

While the offense might have issues, I don't see a whole lot of questions.  The primary one is how the drafting of Rachal and Wallace affects the rest of the offensive line.  Will the team try and get some versatility out of the draftees at different positions, or will they be there to only learn and compete at guard and center respectively?  Dave Baas is expected to miss a chunk of training camp, which definitely could help to speed along the development of Rachal.  I'm not expecting a big impact from Rachal right away, but it will be interesting to see how he handles the chance to compete for an immediate starting role.  As for Wallace, I'd expect him to get some playing time spelling Heitmann but I really don't expect to see him on the field much barring injury.  Let's hope that doesn't happen.  Of course maybe can shock us and win the job in training camp.

Feel free to throw out your own questions and answers.  I know there are plenty of them out there.