Given all our discussion about the NFL Draft and the NFL's labor situation, I thought a little diversion in discussion was much needed. In normal years we would start discussing training camp battles in May after the draft. This year, training camp battles will be contingent upon actually having training camp. Although free agency hasn't even started and the NFL Draft is still four weeks away, I thought it could be at least a little entertaining to try and predict some of the potential position battles we'll see in August...as always, IF training camp happens in August.

I realize this is not the most accurate of exercises, but it would at least give us something to look back on and compare when we get to the eventual training camp. I haven't included every possible position battle, but rather some of the more significant battles.

Third cornerback
This is an interesting position given the fluidity of the 49ers cornerback position. Tarell Brown seemed settled in as the third cornerback, but this offseason will impact that battle. The 49ers will be looking to re-work Nate Clements contract and it's no secret that the team will likely draft a cornerback early in the draft. The question becomes who competes for what role in 2011. There are more questions than answers at this point.

Safeties
The team drafted Taylor Mays in the second round and gave him a crack at the starting strong safety. He had his moments but struggled in the transition. I have to imagine the training camp battle between Mays and Reggie Smith could be quite riveting. I mention safeties as opposed to just strong safety because free agency could impact the free safety position with Dashon Goldson. If he walked it would open things up further, but I see him back with the 49ers next year and handling the free safety job.

Outside Linebackers
This all comes down to what happens with Manny Lawson. If Lawson returns to the 49ers we get to see the three person battle for playing time between Lawson, Ahmad Brooks and Parys Haralson. Throw in the chance for a Von Miller or Robert Quinn (among many other options) and we could see a whole lot of battling in camp.

Wide Receiver
The 49ers won't be losing anybody of significance in their wide receivers. More intriguing will be the return of Dominique Zeigler, who is recovering from a torn ACL. The 49ers are filled with young wide receivers and it remains to be seen who will emerge in the new offense. This position shows the difficulty in trying to figure out these position battles this particular offseason. The 49ers likely won't see a whole lot of changes to their group of wide receivers, and yet given the changing offense we still have no idea what will happen at the position. MIchael Crabtree would seem to be the guy they'll build around with Josh Morgan as the number two, but even that is not set in stone with a new offensive scheme.

Quarterback
Alex Smith......David Carr.....Player X??????????????

NFL TRAINING CAMPS OPEN THIS WEEK;

BROWNS FIRST IN ON FRIDAY

"Helmets on!  Buckle 'em up!"

That's what coaches will say to players this week as the first group of NFL teams report to training camp.

Four clubs will begin their on-field preparations for NFL Kickoff 2010 this week, starting with the Cleveland Browns on Friday, July 23 when their rookies report.

Three teams will follow this weekend, starting with the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday, July 24 and then the rookie class of two more clubs on Sunday, July 25 - the New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers.

By August 1, every NFL team will be in camp.

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I've received a few emails recently asking when the 49ers will be announcing dates for open training camp practices. Well, the time has come for some preliminary info. The 49ers announced they'll be offering free tickets to the Monday August 2 practice at the 49ers facilities down in Santa Clara. The practice is at 5pm and gates will open one hour prior to the start of practice.

Once again the 49ers are teaming up with the San Jose Mercury News to make this happen. In order to get your free tickets, you have a couple options. Either purchase tomorrow's (Wednesday July 7) San Jose Mercury News, OR, become friends with the San Jose Mercury News or Contra Costa Times on Facebook. Then, look for the special "Training Camp Code" that will include instructions. You'll need to follow those instructions and go to 49ers.com to print out your free tickets. One printed ticket will admit one person.

Additional open training camp dates and a full practice schedule will be announced at a later date.

This public practice will include interactive games, sponsor booths and player autograph sessions for fans. During the first open practice, members of the Gold Rush Cheerleading team and Sourdough Sam will also be in attendance. San Francisco 49ers tickets, merchandise and concessions will also be on sale.

Mike Singletary had a variety of comments today related to tomorrow's game and we can definitely infer a lot from them.  I don't have a transcript at this point so we'll link to Maiocco's and Barrows's stories on the comments.

The biggest piece of news to come out of it, and the primary reason for this post, is that Alex Smith will be held out of the game and Shaun Hill will give way to Nate Davis after no more than 12 or so plays into the game.  Depending on how the first drive goes, that means Nate Davis likely gets the final three full quarters, and maybe a little of the first quarter.  Alex Smith apparently would be available if this were a regular season game, but the team would rather avoid aggravating the thumb injury in a meaningless preseason game.

Some other players that will be out tonight tomorrow are Arnaz Battle (shoulder), Cody Wallace (viral meningitis - not the bad bacterial one), Ahmad Brooks (knee), Jay Moore (groin), Brandon Jones (shoulder), Isaac Bruce (preventive), Frank Gore (preventive).

The injuries definitely can't be helping some folks in their battle for a roster spot.  Jay Moore seems pretty much destined for the practice squad.  Cody Wallace could be an interesting decision.  In his article above, Maiocco discussed some battles to be determined tomorrow and included center/guard Matt Spanos vs. Wallace.  I hadn't really thought much about it as Cody Wallace has quietly just sort of been there.  Considering Eric Heitmann is the man for the foreseeable future at center, Wallace is just "there."

The team currently has Tony Wragge as a backup guard/center (although primarily a guard).  Do you just let Wallace continue to sit on the roster not doing anything, or do you see what Spanos could do for you?  Whereas the team has depth concerns at the tackle positions, they're in pretty solid shape at center and guard.  What do you do?

On Tuesday September 1, NFL rosters have to be cut down to 75 men.  According to Mike Sando, rosters have to be at 80 men by tomorrow.  The deadline for the final cut to the 53-man roster is September 5.

For the 49ers, the retirement of Marvel Smith appears to bring them down to 80 men at this point (counted up their roster and subtracted Crabtree).  The question becomes who to release by Tuesday.  They need to release five guys in the coming two days, although they would need to cut a sixth person if they wanted to sign a veteran offensive tackle (Jon Runyan anybody?).  So, who gets the axe at this point?

A quick look at an unofficial depth chart (page 13 of this pdf) would probably yield some combination of the following:

K/P Alex Romero, WR Maurice Price, WR Mark Bradford, WR Chris Francies, FB Bill Rentmeester, one of the three young CBs (Carlos Thomas, Terrail Lambert, Jahi Word-Daniels), one of two LBs (Mark Washington, Justin Roland), one of the younger offensive linemen maybe (Jacob Bender, Joe Toledo, Matt Spanos).

The team is high on Lambert, and I'd imagine they'd prefer to avoid releasing any offensive linemen at this point.  However, I just wanted to get the names out there for consideration.  Given that Brandon Jones will be sitting on the roster, I bet at least 2 of the 5 cuts are from the wide receivers.  At fullback, Brit Miller will make it to the last roster cuts, so the only reason to hold onto Rentmeester is if Moran Norris won't play at all next Friday, you don't want Miller playing the whole game and you don't want to use Michael Robinson at FB.  So basically I'm saying, Rentmeester might not make it past Tuesday.

Anybody I'm missing or shouldn't be including?  I realize the offensive linemen are probably safe right now, but I figured I"d just include them anyways.

A month ago we did our rundown of training camp battles, adding an additional battle three weeks ago.  My how things have changed...Some of the battles have been won and others are no longer really the same battle they were at the beginning of training camp.  Additionally I think we can add a battle or two given how things have changed in the past week or so.

Quarterback
Participants: Shaun Hill, Alex Smith
Winner: Shaun Hill
And there you have it.  Shaun Hill didn't exactly inspire confidence with his performance last weekend, but it apparently was just enough.  Hill will be the starting quarterback week 1 at Glendale, Arizona and Alex Smith will be on the sideline.  As somebody mentioned in the Hill post yesterday, Smith sprained his thumb making the post-interception tackle.  It sounds like he won't be practicing this week, and thus won't be playing this weekend.  Of course, that makes for an interesting question with our newest addition to the training camp battles:

QB #3/Practice Squad/Cut
Participants: Damon Huard, Nate Davis
Leader: Nate Davis
According to Barrows, Nate Davis took all the back-up reps in yesterday's practice.  While Davis did not blow anybody away against the Raiders, he showed solid signs for a rookie who faced a lot of criticism coming out of college.  The question in all this is whether the team would dare place him on waivers in order to put him on their practice squad.  I've said no from the beginning.  I started to question it a bit when he had no pass attempts against the Broncos.  It will be interesting to see how the snaps break down this Saturday.  I'd imagine Hill and the first team offense will play the entire first half.  Maybe then go Davis in the third quarter and Huard in the fourth quarter?  Or do you know what Huard can do and give Davis the entire second half?  Either way, Davis is getting enough playing time that it might be tough to sneak him through waivers at the end of the preseason.

Right Tackle
Participants: Adam Snyder, Marvel Smith
Winner: Adam Snyder
In his post-practice press conference, Mike Singletary stated that Adam Snyder would be the starting right tackle week 1 at Arizona.  Snyder was knocked out of last weekend's game with a knee sprain and will sit out this Saturday at Dallas.  He'll be day-to-day next week but I wouldn't expect to see much of him at San Diego anyways, given that it's the last preseason game of the year.  However, I was certainly a bit surprised to see Snyder grab hold of the first team reps and run with it.  Marvel Smith was supposedly going to get his crack and take over the starting job.  However, looking at Singletary's comments, it sounds like Smith really isn't completely healthy (or at least we can infer that from the comment):

"Well, right now we need to look at how Marvel is progressing. That’s the thought right now, but we don’t want to rush the program that we have Marvel on. We want to make sure that he is ready to do that, full time."

Smith is practicing once a day (as opposed to the normal two-a-days).  Rotoworld said that Marvel Smith would be the "swing" tackle, backing up Snyder and Joe Staley, but that seemed more like random speculation on their part.  At this point, if Smith isn't completely healthy, I'd hope the 49ers think Sims or Boone will be a sufficient backup.  We'll definitely keep an eye on Marvel Smith's situation.  Snyder may have won the job, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some instability at right tackle this season.

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FOOCH'S UPDATE 11:05AM: Maiocco tweeted that Singletary named Smith the starter for tomorrow's game.  It'll be interesting to see how much playing time he gets.

At some point today we'll probably find out who the 49ers will be rolling out at starting quarterback for tomorrow's matchup with the rival Oakland Raiders.  A couple days ago, Maiocco indicated the starter would probably be Alex Smith.  If that announcement does come down, I'd hope nobody would read too much into that.  As Maiocco indicated, and one would imagine is fairly obvious at this point, Shaun Hill is leading the battle for the starting QB position.

One could first look at the fact that Hill had so little playing time against the Broncos, even as the starting quarterback.  Jimmy Raye addressed it yesterday when asked about the split time for this coming weekend:

On the quarterbacks getting an equal amount of playing time this Saturday:
"Yes, that’s what we’d like to do.  We made the decision last week because of the play sequence not to put the guy that started the game back in because it would spill over and run us in to a situation in the second half that we didn’t want to be in with the time and the offensive line. Whoever we talk about in the Thursday meeting to start the game, the next guy that’s in competition with him we hope that he gets the snaps. That’s controlled a little bit by how they control the ball and the quarters running out and the time, so we’ll either go snap and series based on how the game is unfolding, but we’d like to get each one of them about 15 snaps a piece."

I realize there are play sequence issues, but I just think if the race was all that close at this point, we would have seen more of Shaun Hill.  He was 2/2 for 41 yards on one offensive series.  Alex Smith ended up with four offensive series through the end of the second quarter.  I suppose the timing does lend credence to the play sequence explanation, as Smith came in with less than a minute left in the first quarter. 

But still, given how little they played Nate Davis, they could have fit in a bit more playing time for Hill if they really wanted to see more.  It's safe to say they know what they're expecting from Hill.  Obviously he needs to show that he can smoothly run the offense.  However, the 49ers have reached a point where they probably have a good idea of what to get out of Hill.  Alex Smith, on the other hand, is finally healthy and could show them who knows what.

So, at this point, can Alex Smith win the job?  Obviously anything is possible when you don't have a Peyton Manning or Tom Brady as your QB.  However, it seems like we've reached a point where Hill would have to totally melt down in an extended preseason appearance.  Of course, based on the spread of playing time, his only extended preseason appearance would likely be next week at Dallas.  Time is ticking for Alex Smith, at least as far as the early part of the preseason is concerned.  Although I'm curious to see both QBs performance tomorrow, at this point I'm even more intrigued by Singletary's post-game press conference.

The 49ers and Raiders met up today in the first of two days worth of joint practices and things quickly got a little feisty.  As this picture shows, Rathman was involved in breaking up some skirmishes.  In looking over the two practice recaps (Maiocco and Barrows), I love the fact that Frank Gore was getting especially feisty.  You know he had some energy to unleash after being held out last Friday.  This was his first opportunity to run over an opposing team's defense and he seemed to really enjoy it:

Barrows: The biggest hit of training camp was delivered today. But it didn't come in a team situation between the Raiders and 49ers and it wasn't given by defensive player. Instead, the blow came courtesy of Frank Gore during a pass-blocking drill when he absolutely leveled Ricky Brown, an outside linebacker and one of the better pass rushers on the Raiders. Gore, who's about 5-9, 215 pounds, put the 6-2, 235-pound Brown on his back.

According to various sources, Gore stood over Brown and glared at him after the play. I've posted Coach Singletary's post-practice press conference transcript but he specifically spoke about Gore's intensity and the warning he issued about fighting:

"I told Frank that I was going to put him on the bus if he does that again, but he did a nice job. Frank is a guy that gets excited about what he’s doing and to me his heart, his emotion and his enthusiasm is what this game is all about."

Singletary did mention that while he warned them against fighting, there was no penalty for it (as there was for intra-team fighting previously).  Either way, I'm glad to see this kind of passion and intensity at this point in the preseason.

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