It’s been a long six months since the 49ers’ season ended in heartbreaking fashion in the NFC Championship Game.
But football is back, and the Niners’ road to redemption begins with training camp, which starts this week in Santa Clara.
This is a magical time of the season, training camp. It means everything. It means nothing. It’s weeks of practice and a handful of practice games and despite all of that football, it’s hard to deduce what anything actually is.
But as we head into the abyss, there are a few rules to remember:
The defense will have a head start on the offense. Or is it the other way around?
The first practices of training camp will not feature pads. That is not football, and all information from those practices should be ignored.
But once the pads come on, look out for the defense — they’re going to make the offense feel them, like they do every year. You see, the offense is all about timing, where defenses can just hit.
Or is it the offense that comes out more crisp once the pads crack? You see, defenses need to work as a unit and offenses don’t need everyone rowing in the same direction to get yards — especially when you have a quarterback like Trey Lance and playmakers around him.
Suffice it to say, that one unit will look better in the early days of training camp. Read into that advantage at your own peril.
Twitter will latch onto a player in the first few days of practice and make him a cult hero. He will not make the team.
Remember Wayne Gallman?
Last year, 49ers media — official and unofficial — was collectively convinced he would back up Raheem Mostert at running back to start the season.
He was cut when the 49ers cut their roster to 53 players. Apparently, he wasn’t even close to making the team.
This happens every year, often multiple times.
Practices give ample opportunity to players who stand no chance to actually make the team (oftentimes playing against their also-not-good-enough counterparts). Preseason games — the value of which is constantly in question — only add to the confusion.
As such, far too much discussion happens about players who don’t really stand much of a chance of making the team.
It’s OK to like perceived underdog players — that’s part of the fun of training camp.
But remember that they’re underdogs for a reason.
Everything Trey Lance does will be recorded and scrutinized by the court of public opinion.
Here’s the fun fact: the court of public opinion will not be the folks who actually see and register every play Lance makes or doesn’t make in practice.
Are you ready for a first-year starter’s entire career potential to be adjudicated based on tweets and distant practice footage?
Every day, it will be determined whether Lance will win MVP or be benched by Week 4.
Maybe Lance is a bust. Maybe he is one of the best players in the league. Perhaps he’ll be a first-year starter who shows ups and downs in practice.
Overreacting to both — if there’s balance — will be exhausting.
Prepare yourself now.
You will see a significant development that seems plainly obvious in a preseason game. That is Kyle Shanahan playing a trick on you.
The preseason has never mattered less. That’s saying something because it hasn’t mattered much to this point.
But the concept of real tackling, referees, and kickoffs in a real stadium will fool us into thinking that 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan is treating these games with anything other than complete disdain.
Shanahan hates the preseason. He also likes messing with the media, fans, and other teams by putting unimportant things on tape.
Remember when Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo alternated snaps in the third and final game of the preseason last summer? That was the same game that Trey Sermon was the No. 2 running back.
Real revelatory stuff. Neither thing came close to happening in real games.
That said, the Lions likely had a hell of a week of film study ahead of Week 1.
Practices might matter a bit. Games don’t.
Indeed, everything that happens in a preseason game needs to be taken with a grain of salt, if not the entire rock.
Jimmy Garoppolo will be there even if he’s not, you know, actually there.
The most talked-about player at 49ers training camp will be Lance.
The second most-discussed player will be Jimmy Garoppolo.
And that will be the case whether Garoppolo is on the field, on the sideline, or not even in Santa Clara for training camp.
If Garoppolo is officially no longer a Niner in the coming days and weeks, that will only ramp up the rhetoric to possibly record levels.
If the 49ers can’t actually rid themselves of Garoppolo and the discussion of his presence — even if they cut or trade him — then I don’t see why they don’t just keep him as Lance’s backup.
The only reason not to do that is money. Truth be told, I think the Niners can manage to overpay their backup quarterback.
