Sean Smith rumors: Fact, fiction or somewhere in between?

The lead up to free agency is filled with just about every possible rumor you can imagine. That is good for us in the sense that it gives us things to pick apart and discuss. Even if it seems a little absurd, the rumors provide a starting point for discussion about a given issue with the 49ers.

On the other hand, with so many people pumping out so many rumors, it is very easy to fall into a pool of rumors that leave us with no real idea of what the 49ers might do. We are likely to be in the dark no matter what, but adding more random nonsense to the rumor mill does not help matters.

I bring this up because I came across a rumor courtesy of Neal Coolong from Behind the Steel Curtain. He pointed me to the Rotoworld page for free agent cornerback Sean Smith.

Rotoworld is a solid aggregator of news sources, but they can be tough to figure out when they provide their analysis. In this Smith post, they mention the 49ers as being "rumored to have interest in Smith." The 49ers could use cornerback depth, so it makes sense that the 49ers would kick the tires on Smith.

However, I find myself wondering where Rotoworld heard this rumor connecting Smith with the 49ers. I know of one place that posted such a rumor and that is Pro Football Central. No, not Pro Football Talk, but rather Pro Football Central.

They have come into the news in recent weeks claiming to have broken the Alex Smith news first, and I believe also saying they were on the Dwayne Bowe contract extension before everybody else. After doing some digging around, and asking some people I trust, they are sounding more and more like another version of "Incarcerated Bob".

For those that don't know about Bob, he is a Twitter account that seems to enjoy throwing out as many rumors as he can, even if some of them do not have a prayer of coming true. Some of you might remember him from the Jim Harbaugh hiring frenzy. He had a whole lot of stuff to say, even if some of it was a bit questionable.

I bring this up because I know people are scouring the Internet searching for news about free agents. As you are searching around, it is key to keep things in their proper context. Pro Football Central could get some things right over the next week, but you need to take things with a grain of salt knowing that a lot of the stuff you hear is BS.

That being said, thoughts on Smith?