The 49ers will hit the field for OTAs on Monday, the first time the team will practice as a whole this season.
Well, almost as a whole.
A certain quarterback will be watching from the sideline as his elbow heals and the reigning defensive player of the year doesn’t typically attend voluntary sessions like this one. It’s also common for players to have clean-up surgeries early in the offseason, and some of those could be revealed, too.
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The team will have two OTA sessions this week, Monday and Tuesday. The media will be on hand Tuesday. Here’s what we’ll be watching …
1. Nothing will be scrutinized more than Trey Lance’s throwing motion, which, by all accounts, improved after Lance spent most of March with quarterback guru Jeff Christensen and Christensen’s most famous client, Patrick Mahomes, in the Dallas area.
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According to Christensen, Lance is throwing tighter spirals, his release is quicker and, perhaps most important, he’s no longer dealing with the arm fatigue he’s experienced in previous seasons.
Lance’s sessions with Christensen were all about mechanics, and he mostly was throwing to high school receivers with no defensive players on the field. Now Lance will test his retooled delivery against the best defense in the league last season. Lance completed only 54.7 percent of his attempts in last year’s training camp. The team would love to see him elevate that into the 60 percent range this spring and summer.
2. Who gets the first-team repetitions at quarterback with Brock Purdy still recuperating from elbow surgery? You’d think they’d go to Lance, the 2021 No. 3 draft pick who at this point last year was the unquestioned starter.
Kyle Shanahan, however, has made it sound as if Lance and Sam Darnold are on equal footing and that both will get chances with the top offense this spring.
“I truly see Sam, talentwise, as a top pick in the draft just like he was,” Shanahan said earlier this month. “You watch his whole career and there’s no reason to think differently. He hasn’t been in the best situations, so we’re glad to have him here. And I’m so glad he wanted to come here. He could’ve gone to a lot of different situations and probably made a lot more money.”
Shanahan reiterated that Purdy is the team’s top quarterback when healthy. But No. 2?
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“We know we have a quarterback who’s done it at a high level in the NFL who we can win with,” Shanahan said. “I also believe we have two more on our roster. Strongly. But one guy has shown it. So let’s see how it plays out.”
3. Nick Bosa almost certainly will be a no-show at OTAs, and it’s not because he’s waiting on a new megacontract from the 49ers. Bosa spends his offseason training with brother Joey at their super secret two-member gym in South Florida, and he has the full blessing of the 49ers to miss the voluntary sessions.
“Believe me, Nick Bosa is working,” general manager John Lynch said last offseason. “He shows that each and every time he shows up, that he’s in elite shape.”
If Bosa doesn’t attend the mandatory minicamp in June, that would be a bigger deal. And if he doesn’t report for training camp in late July, well, that would be even more newsworthy. The 49ers aim to have Bosa’s deal completed by then.
4. The silver lining to Bosa’s absence: It gives the team more opportunities to assess the other defensive ends, a group that includes holdover Drake Jackson, free-agent additions Clelin Ferrell and Austin Bryant, and fifth-round pick Robert Beal Jr.
Ferrell and Jackson likely will be the first-string defensive ends this week while Bosa is out of town. The team would love it if Jackson holds onto that starting spot when Bosa arrives. Jackson reportedly has added bulk and strength — elements that waned at the end of his rookie season — during the offseason. He leads the list of second-year players the 49ers hope take a significant step forward in 2023.
5. We might as well add Kalia Davis to this year’s rookie class. The defensive tackle was a sixth-round pick out of Central Florida last year (The Athletic’s Dane Brugler rated him as a fourth- or fifth-rounder) but spent 2022 on the non-football injury list while recovering from an ACL tear he suffered in college.
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Davis, however, was able to practice with the team for three weeks at the end of the season and reported he felt very good — and confident in his knee — coming out of that third week. Which is to say, he went into the offseason with momentum.
As you might recall, Davis switched from linebacker to defensive lineman midway through his college career. His game is built on quickness and pursuit, which should mesh well with the 49ers’ defensive style. Defensive line coach Kris Kocurek always wants a strong group of “Bravos” — what he calls his second-tier defensive line. Candidates for that group this year include Davis, Javon Kinlaw, Kevin Givens, Ferrell, Bryant and Kerry Hyder Jr., signaling that it could be one of Kocurek’s best so far.
6. Jackson may be the most scrutinized of the second-year players this spring, but he’s followed closely by a pair of 2022 third-round picks, running back Tyrion Davis-Price and receiver Danny Gray.
Davis-Price was leapfrogged by undrafted rookie Jordan Mason last season, while Gray finished with just one catch, which came at the end of a blowout win over the Buccaneers.
The 49ers’ first four receiver spots are set with Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, Jauan Jennings and Ray-Ray McCloud III. And while Gray is the front-runner to hold onto the fifth spot, there are a couple of young wideouts nipping at his heels.
The first is Tay Martin, an undrafted rookie in 2022 who stuck around on the practice squad throughout the season. Martin could follow the course set by Kendrick Bourne (undrafted 2017) and Jennings (seventh round 2020) as far as breaking out in Year 2.
The other contender is seventh-round pick Ronnie Bell, who stood out in the rookie minicamp practice earlier this month. The 49ers see Bell as a quick learner — someone who can become a reliable backup at all three receiver spots. Guys like that are valuable on the game-day roster.
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Davis-Price, meanwhile, will battle Mason and two newcomers, undrafted rookies Khalan Laborn and Ronald Awatt, for the third spot in the tailback rotation.
7. Zane Gonzalez, we hardly knew ye? Yes, it’s very hard to see Gonzalez, the veteran kicker the 49ers acquired in March, making the 53-man squad after the team used a third-round pick on Jake Moody.
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But that doesn’t mean their kicks won’t be charted and compared throughout the spring and summer. A close battle would only benefit the 49ers, who might be able to trade Gonzalez to one of the many teams that were looking for a kicker during the draft.
The 49ers acquired him from Carolina for a conditional seventh-round pick. Who knows, they might be able to deal him for something better at the end of August.
8. Considering how important center is to Shanahan, it’s odd that he’s never developed one of his own in San Francisco. Every player who has started at that spot since 2017 has either been someone Shanahan inherited or was acquired in free agency.
This year, Jake Brendel will start and veteran Jon Feliciano is the likely backup. But it will be intriguing to see which young players also line up at center in the spring and summer. Candidates include Keith Ismael, Nick Zakelj, Jason Poe and a trio of 2023 undrafted rookies, Joey Fisher, Ilm Manning and Corey Luciano. Of that group, Ismael, a fifth-round pick by the Commanders in 2020, is the only one who isn’t homegrown.
9. It also will be interesting to see who the 49ers are developing at tackle. Trent Williams, Colton McKivitz, Matt Pryor and Jaylon Moore are slotted into the top spots. Someone to keep an eye on: Leroy Watson, a converted tight end the team added to the practice squad last season. Watson was a strong blocker in college who seems to be making a steady transition to his new position.
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10. Right guard also is worth watching. Last year, then-rookie Spencer Burford alternated series with veteran Daniel Brunskill. This year, Brunskill is with the Titans and the 49ers signed Feliciano for the role of interior line backup.
Will Feliciano be worked in the way Brunskill was in 2022 or has Burford proved himself enough to get the starting job outright?
(Top photo of Trey Lance: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
