Bee staff writer Matthew Barrows is at 49ers training camp in Santa Clara. Look for his blogs throughout the day at www.sacbee.com/blogs. The following are excerpts from Tuesday's blogs:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Training camp is full of minutia, and it's dangerous to lock in on one bit of that minutia and try to make dramatic conclusions from it. And yet … well, I've been thinking about that two-minute drill that Alex Smith ran Monday night. I'm not going to say that it reveals the secret to the three-way quarterback competition. All I'm going to say is that it was interesting. Here's why:
1. Smith executed it pretty darn well. Some of his passes are still late and thrown behind his receivers. But the bottom line is that he steadily moved the team down the field and began to display a command of the offense that offensive coordinator Mike Martz predicted would start to show right about now.
2. Smith wasn't even supposed to be on the field. He was supposed to get first crack at running the two-minute offense and then yield to either Shaun Hill or J.T. O'Sullivan. When the first team went four and out – because of a dropped pass – Martz decided to leave Smith in when the second team took the field. Martz said he wanted to see how Smith handled himself in an end-of-game situation. Does that mean Martz is leaning toward Smith and needs just a bit more reinforcement before he decides Smith's the one? Or does it mean Martz senses a flaw in Smith – that he has trouble in pressure situations? Don't know the answer. What is evident, however, is that Smith made the most of the opportunity.
3. Head coach Mike Nolan was watching the defense on a separate practice field while all of this was happening. Sure, he'll get to watch the practice tape and make his assessments off of that. But it's a signal that Martz is the one pulling the strings as far as which quarterbacks get which first-team opportunities. And that's a good thing.
• Cornerback Tarel Brown and safety Dashon Goldson took part in special-teams practice, according to a team spokesman.
• As expected, Nolan gave the team the afternoon off. Instead of hitting the practice field, they'll hit the movie theater … to see "The Dark Knight."
– Matthew Barrows
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