Another reason the 49ers have only gently dipped their big toe into the free-agency pool this offseason?
In addition to their 14-pick haul in next month's draft, there are five players from last year's class who either played sparingly or not at all during their rookie seasons.
Outside linebacker Darius Fleming, for example, tore his ACL just a few minutes into the team's first minicamp last May.
"I just cut wrong," Fleming said Tuesday. "My foot went one way and my leg went the other way."
Fleming, a fifth-round selection out of Notre Dame, sat out the 2012 season as a result. The experience, he said, made him hungrier to make his mark this year.
"Me and Cam (Johnson) talk about it all the time," he said. "We began looking forward to this coming preseason and this (training) camp since the middle of last season. We're looking forward to being able to play together."
Not every player who suffers a season-ending injury in the spring decides to stay at the team facility all season. Fleming did just that, working out daily with strength coach Mark Uyeyama and fellow outside linebacker Parys Haralson, who tore his triceps in August. A silver lining to his injury, Fleming said, is that he was able to spend a lot of time next to Haralson – both in rehab and on the sideline during games – and that he picked up plenty of tips from the veteran linebacker.
Fleming is a little more than a month from the one-year anniversary of his injury, and he said his knee feels as if it is back to normal. He's back in Santa Clara and is part of a workout group that includes other young guns, like Johnson, safety Trenton Robinson and nose tackle Ian Williams, who are eager to find a role on the team this year.
"We're all good players," Fleming said. "We're excited to prove it."
Read Matthew Barrows' blogs and archives at www.sacbee.com/sf49ers and listen for his reports Tuesdays on ESPN Radio 1320. Follow him on Twitter @mattbarrows.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
• Read more articles by Matthew Barrows
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
Order Reprint
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.