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The San Francisco 49ers wrapped up their last set of OTAs on Thursday, and will wrap up their offseason program next week with their mandatory minicamp. The minicamp will run June 11-13 and will feature availability to the press all three days. Things go relatively dark after that until training camp, but it at least gives us one last stretch of 49ers news before five to six weeks of silence.
Cam Inman had an expected, but still notable piece of news. Tarell Brown has been training at home, but will be in attendance at next week's mandatory minicamp. Brown is entering the final year of his contract, but emphasized that his absence was not contract-related:
"For me, I wanted to do a different type of training to get my body ready," Brown said Wednesday in a phone interview with this newspaper. "Last year, I feel my body broke down a bit at the end of the season."
According to Brown, he is working on leg conditioning, speed work and over-acceleration speed. He apparently has taken up Bikram yoga, frequent chiropractic visits, massages and stretching exercises.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of Bikram yoga, in part because I like moving around and doing stuff to stay active. For Brown, who has plenty more time to work on staying in shape for football, it makes sense to include that in his workout process. Yoga helps develop flexibility, which is one more way to proactively try and avoid injuries.
Brown will enter training camp a favorite to get plenty of snaps, but it will be an interesting position battle. The 49ers signed Nnamdi Asomugha and drafted Marcus Cooper in the seventh round. They will be expecting improvement from Chris Culliver, Perrish Cox has a full year under his belt, and Carlos Rogers might have a thing or two to say about playing time. I see this as primarily a four-man battle between Brown, Rogers, Culliver and Asomugha, but don't sleep on Perrish Cox. Jim Harbaugh loves the phrase "iron sharpens iron", and the cornerback position will be a position that will see plenty of that later this summer.