Earlier today, Matt Maiocco put together a rundown of various questions the 49ers could have answered tomorrow against the Seahawks. With less than 24 hours until the 49ers kick off their 2011 NFL season, it will be nice to finally get some concrete answers. That's not to say we'll get final answers to the questions, but we can at least start to have legitimate 2011 data, as opposed to preseason stats, when we rush to judgment.
Maiocco opened the post by discussing QB Colin Kaepernick as a possible wildcat QB. Trent Baalke made some comments after the draft about having a possible advantage with Kaepernick coming out of the Pistol offense and being able to have some QB-driven runs.
Do you expect to see anything like that during this season? Kaepernick has struggled throwing the ball but he still does have the legs to scramble and he was a beast at Nevada in such situations.
At the same time, Alex Smith is a guy who actually is a solid scrambler. He is no Michael Vick when it comes to running with the ball, but his experience in the Urban Meyer spread offense at Utah leaves him in a position to hurt some teams with his leagues.
While it will be interesting to see if Kaepernick is mixed in on any offensive packages, I'm most intrigued to see how Jim Harbaugh utilizes Alex Smith's athleticism. Harbaugh seemed to mix in the occasional designed run with Andrew Luck at Stanford, and he seemed to provide for some early run options in plays. I don't expect QB runs every offensive series, but I would not be surprised to see them mixed in here and there.