Given our post this morning about the battle between Alex Boone and Barry Sims, I thought we might as well make this a morning focused on the offensive line. The center is basically the quarterback of the offensive line and the 49ers have plenty of issues that have arisen over the past couple weeks with the center position.
After Eric Heitmann broke his leg early in training camp, the battle was supposed to be on between David Baas, Tony Wragge and Cody Wallace for the starting center position. Although Heitmann is expected back fairly early in the regular season, the team was going to need to figure out a way to make do with a new center. Thus far, things actually seem to be moving along quite well.
Thus far, David Baas has really been quite solid at the center position. I have yet to see a problem snap after hearing about some problems in practice. More importantly he has shown some skill in taking on the interior linemen he's faced thus far. After yesterday's game, both Barrows and Maiocco had positive comments about Baas' play.
Now, say Baas excels at the center position and the offensive line finds itself in a nice little groove when Eric Heitmann's broken leg is healed. While Heitmann is very talented, a lot of the work of an offensive line comes from the chemistry the five members develop. With rookies at the left guard and right tackle positions, that chemistry is especially important. Does the team risk messing that up? Or am I getting ahead of myself considering we're only halfway through the preseason? I suppose it wouldn't be the worst problem to have, but it's certainly something to consider.