Notes from Sunday's 49er practice

So I was lucky enough to attend The 49ers training camp practice today (thanks Phil if you are reading this). Practice was only open to about 500 invited guests. Here are some things I saw and noticed.

Starting off with the qb competition it seems as if Smith struggles the most in ranges of 10-20 yards but 25 yards plus when he can get some air under the ball he has great accuracy. He missed at least 4-5 short throws due to sloppy passes and at one point missed 3 in a row during individual drill with his wr's without anybody in coverage. After that stretch I looked over and saw Singletary dig into his pocket and write something down. I'm not saying I know what he wrote or if it was bad and I'm not trying to make assumptions however he was looking dead at Smith for all 3 bad throws and did make some notes after. Smith did look good in team however most throws were short checkdown throws. There seems to be a lot of short passing involved in Raye's new offense which in my opinion will ultimately favor Hill.

Vernon Davis looked very good and I didn't see him drop any balls. He can definetely be a big weapon this year by catching underneath passes, breaking one tackle and chewing up big yards with his speed. He is very elusive and seems to create good seperation when matched up against line backers.

Kory Sheets surprised me today he is VERY fast and explosive. When in the open field whether on toss plays or screen and swing passes he can definetely exploit defenses. How he will hold up between the tackles still remains the question and was very hard to judge because the defense was not making tackles.

Josh Morgan did not want to leave the field after practice. He ran some sprints and talked with Jerry Sullivan the receivers coach for a while after talking about what seemed to be plays and coverages. He then stood up and started playing catch with him. When I finally decided to leave he was still there in full pads minus helmet. Vernon also stuck around to catch passes from the machine and Scott Mckillop stuck around to do some sled work.

Best play of the day goes to Josh Morgan during 1 on 1's early in practice when he made a nice one handed grab with Dre Bly hanging on him. It would have been Bear Pascoe's diving catch at the end from Nate Davis however Pascoe could not quite bring the pass in.

The offense today worked a lot of toss plays and practice did not run for too long. They also did kick return and Rossum doesn't seem to have lost a step.

Marvel Smith practiced with the first team all practice and looked good. He is a big guy.

Defensively the speed from our linebacker corps. was definetely evident on the toss plays they ran. It seems like rallying to the ball will be a focal point of this years d. The secondary looked very sharp forcing a lot of check downs and not allowing really any deep passes. Linebacker Parys Haralson was not practicing. The pass rush seemed like it was hurting with his absence with not too much pressure being put on the qb except one play where Hill managed to somehow escape on and check the ball down to his running back. The defense never seemed to bring more than 4 in pressure either which I'm sure contributed to the good pass protection.

That's all I have for today thanks for reading.