I’ll be able to watch some of the practices this week on NFL Network. Whenever I get the chance I’ll make sure to post notes on who looked good and who didn’t.
OL Blocking Drills
- Interesting that in the first walk through, Carimi is working at LG.
- Kevin Kowalski didn’t look to be very strong. He struggled to push back some of the lineman in one drill.
- Jason Pinkston was playing with great leverage and had good strength. He was moving people around and at the same time was hard to push back.
RB/TE vs LB/S 1 on 1′s
- Mike McNeill dropped a pass in 1 on 1 drills.
- Lance Kendricks with a very nice move to get open on Lefeged.
- Lawrence Wilson made a nice play to break on the ball and knock it away.
- Da’Rel Scott blew by Herzlich for a deep route. Nice over the shoulder catch.
- Mason Foster was holding like mad on one play. Was definitely PI.
- Lawrence Wilson looks very good in coverage.
- Casey Matthews with a nice play in coverage on DeMarco Murray.
- Searcy showed some  horrible ball skills.
WR/CB 1 on 1′s
- Kendric Burney got burned deep by Niles Paul.
- Vincent Brown makes a very nice catch in tight coverage by Rashad Carmichael.
- Titus Young with a very nice route.
- Great coverage by Burney on Dwayne Harris.
- Quinton Carter did a good job of forcing Austin Pettis to the sideline.
- Titus Young drops a high pass. Looks really out of control running his routes.
- Titus Young makes a nice adjustment on a deep ball.
- Vincent Brown drops a pass that was pretty far outside. He could have had it though.
- Titus Young drops the reverse but then makes a nice move to make Quinton Carter miss.
11 on 11 Drills
- Jake Locker throws a nice pass to Vincent Brown who makes another great catch away from his body.
- Carmichael with great coverage on a go route.
- Titus Young catches a screen and probably would have taken it for a TD in a real game.
- Kaepernick makes a nice throw to Vincent Brown.
7 on 7 Drills
- Jake Locker throws high and Carmichael makes the gimmie pick.
- Locker throws the check down but again too high.
- Titus Young jumps offside. Come on man its practice lol.
OL/DL 1 on 1′s
- Gabe Carimi with a great pass-block in a 1 on 1 drill against Jeremy Beal.
- Solder sticks with Pierre Allen and his spin move in pass-pro.
- Solder with another nice block forcing Allen to take a wide angle.
- Ian Williams just threw Kowalski to the ground. Kowalski got him back on the next play though holding his ground.
- James Brewer with a very nice block on Ballard. Strong punch.
- Ryan Kerrigan destroys Solder with an outside fake and then inside.
- Solder with a good recovery on Beal after the fake inside move.
- Fusco with a very nice block on Fua throwing him to the ground.
- Pinkston with a nice punch
- Great lateral agility by Pinkston stopping Allen in his tracks.
- Carimi is having his way with Beal.
Overall Thoughts
There we’re quite a few impressive players today. Jason Pinkston, Nate Solder and Gabe Carimi all stood out in OL drills. Neither of them ever got beat in 1 on 1′s. They didn’t show a lot of the RB’s except for the receiving drill and it was hard to really gauge anyone on that. Some of the WR’s really stepped up though. Titus Young and Vincent Brown we’re probably the most impressive. Niles Paul also looked good. Austin Pettis looked really slow but he was able to get some separation. This was in 1 on 1 drills though so the offense for the most part is SUPPOSED to win. Rashad Carmichael was  the most impressive CB. He had a pick on an overthrow from Locker but had tight coverage all day.
There weren’t a lot of guys that stood out on the negative side. Lefeged didn’t look comfortable at all in coverage and was beaten deep a few times. Jeremy Beal was also having a rough day on the DL. He was routinely stopped but you could see he was working really hard. This only confirms my initial thoughts on him being just a high motor guy that will never be a pass-rush specialist in the NFL.
There wasn’t much to take away from this first practice as some of the QB’s were clearly rusty. They will get better though, as will everyone, so we should be able to see more plays being made in the upcoming days of practice.
