It's been a pretty slow week in terms of posts, but here on the slowest sports day of the year, I figured it's a good time to get back in the saddle. We'll get back into the swing of pre-season previewing in the coming days.
In the meantime, I wanted to throw out this article about Tarell Brown by Kevin Lynch from the San Francisco Chronicle. There is always a lot of discussion here about Matt Maiocco's blog over at the Press Democrat. I am certainly a fan of Maiocco's insight into the league. At the same time, I've always been a fan of Kevin Lynch's style of writing. In this case, Lynch has put together an interesting feature article that goes deeper into Tarell Brown's background.
When Tarell Brown was first selected, all I heard over and over again was the story about him being found asleep in the backseat of a friend's car with a gun and marijuana. Obviously this was something that could not be overlooked. However, we all realized he was a Day 1 talent and Mike Nolan seemed amenable to taking a small risk here.
Having read over Kevin Lynch's feature piece, it makes me feel that much better about Brown and hopeful for his future in the NFL. While there is plenty of interest in Tarell Brown's background, a football-related portion that intrigues me mentions,
Tarell returned to the game and played the rest of the season with the injury, which limited his ability to cut and accelerate.
"The pain was so bad, some games they had to carry me off the field," Brown said.
When asked if he thought he was hurting his draft status by playing his senior year, he said, "No, I wanted to be out there with my teammates."
Many times a sports blog is out there to provide snarky comments about the subject their covering. Certainly as long as Kwame Harris is getting holding penalties, that will be the case here. However, the Tarell Brown saga is one time where that is clearly not necessary. We still have plenty to learn about the new, young 49ers over the coming weeks, months and future seasons. However, I it seems like Tarell Brown is making a good impression early on. He's got his work cut out for him if he wants to make an impact right away, but I'm feeling good about his chances.