Gotta love it. Fysical is the perfect antidote for this finesse division ;-)

You are the BEST MM. Thank you!!!!!

NICE! I'm expecting some BIIIIGGGGG hits this season! more brad smiths please.

OMG!!!

All padded practices and no days off. This isn't training camp it's freaking BOOT CAMP!!! I LOVE IT

Pretty soon, they'll be tired of hittin' each other and looking forward to smackin' opposing teams. Man I can't wait for September.

Hey Matt, please keep an eye on who is lining up at NT and let us know how they are looking. Thanks a bunch, and keep up the great work.

A tactic used in Boot camp against loser soldiers is to have them sit in a comfy-chair while their mates are forced to do extra-hard drills. I wonder if Crabtree will feel the scorn when he finally joins his 'teammates' after skipping 15 days of brutality...

If I remember correctly it was Bill Walsh that went away from then current practice and severely cut down the number of full pads practices. He wanted his players to remain fresher at the end of the season. Makes sense to me, why beat up your own players in practice? Hitting doesn't contribute to player fitness. Exactly the opposite.

"Makes sense to me, why beat up your own players in practice?"

They're tackling the camp bodies... let their mommas deal with it ;)

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree.

Its like saying I want to get get buffed up fast so I'm going to lift weights using the same muscles every day. Sounds good, but it doesn't work. At some point your body needs a rest.

Football is an already violent sport and hopefully it will be a long season, no need to punish the body so soon. Hopefully,they wont always be hitting, but more learning how to practice with the same gear they will wear on game day. That makes more sense.

The best way to train your body, I've heard, is to work out for a day, then rest a day, then rinse, wash and repeat. Not sure how that applies to American Football, though.

At what point did Walsh drop the hitting in camp Real fan? In 81? Or a little later? The team he had to work with later was the best in the land, with pre-salary cap, eddie D leveraged quality at every position. That, as you know, is not the team Singletary has.....he has a team that hasn't had a winning season for a while, and has for some of that time been at the very bottom of the tree, so a complete house cleaning back to basics makes sense right now....once we've won the superbowl in February maybe he can think about relaxing next year!! ( well a man can dream right? )
But it's also a new coach/manager thing to turn things upside down, so in a way walsh and singletary are doing the same thing, no? The process is the same, the content the opposite.
What a treat this blog is, it brings me "in" to a pro team as never before. You've developed a new form here Matt, well done.

"Football is blocking and tackling-everything else is mythology" Coach Lombardi once said...the toughness of character gained thru perseverance and concentration on the little things will serve our team well. The concerns about injury and burnout are valid-however as we all know the time our starters will be on the field in preseason will allow some recuperation from the vigorous training ahead. Hail Sparta- don your leather headgear and pass the band aids gentlemen- let's see what's what!

I LOVE the schedule and contact MS will be bringing to summer practice! Smith's statement that "He's never done tackling drills in the NFL" must be true because it really shows on the playing field, sorry to say. The last ten or so years the tackling throughout the NFL has been embarrassing!! When I'm at the games I make it plain, when my young nephews come, that they should NEVER tackle the way many of these defensive players do. And that goes for the other teams as well as the 9ers! So many times there are complete whiffs by defensive backs on receivers and especially running backs.
In addition, I say let these guys crunch each other right from the get go! I'm sick and tired as a 49er fan seeing so many players each year being injured. I believe it comes from lack of hitting in practice. There's too much emphasis on just running and walking through plays! When these players finally get in the games, some fold like an accordian!!
Let these guys hit each other!! And may the best physically fit guys come out the winners!! Many of these guys are spoiled and treated like glass in practice! No more pulled muscles. No more broken thumb nails. No more hang nails. No more scratches on the pinky finger, all keeping these guys out of games.
GO FOR IT MS!!!!

One thing people are forgetting is how our defense was seemingly pushed around by opposing offenses. I think tackling drills are a great way to teach players to be physical.

For the skeptics, just try and remember how many arm-tackles we've seen over the years where the opposing player went right thru our defender because he didn't get a body on that player and instead stuck his arm out. Busted arm-tackles probably give def coordinators fits because there is no way one can bring down an NFL player via arm-tackling. Only by putting your chest into their numbers can it be done correctly.

Watch the "Friday Night Lights" movie and you'll see what an emphasis on body-to-body tackling is really like. Our players don't do enough of that kind of tackling at all IMO.

I'd say that Walsh was able to be lenient on the practices because his players were good at those basics. Modern NFL players probably aren't as good at the basics so a refresher probably will work wonders.

I like it.

When you've got players like Lott on the defensive side of the ball... you don't have to, as a coach, 'push the team to be physical'. Just sayin.

Will Sing have them going No Holds Bar for 2 weeks straight???

I highly doubt it... I think he is setting a tone that says "We Want Winners" Most of us have probably played some level of Football. We all know there were those that always excelled in practice... always gave 100%. Think if 100% of the team did that at a Pro Level??? Take J.Russell... dude doesn't care and comes into camp way overweight. What does that say??? It means... I'm gettin' paid and don't have to dig deep. I think Sing is bringing "Unity" to the team and respect back to the franchise. Walsh was great and had his vision but now it's Sings time... Reminds me of Rocky III. Money and fame put the flame out... the desire to do everything necessary to win. What did Rocky do??? He turned to Apollo (Sing)... went Old School and beat Mr T's A$$!!!

Lolzorz... of course Smith hasn't done tackling drills in the pros. He played for the Bengals. Then No-win. His only source of knowledge on the subject came from his high school and college coaches. It's not like he's been working with elite leaders of the game, after all...

No suprise to me, I fully anticipated this style of training camp and it will serve our team well in the regular season.

niceeee....

We will see about this experiment as it conflicts with Bill Walsh's philosophy of training camp. He didn't believe in punishing training camps. Hard work, yes, but drilling precision was senior to boot camp tactics and he wanted to save wear & tear for the season. He made sure players reported in shape or they were gone.

But it's Coach's team and I do trust him. Clearly he believes this is necessary for this team.

The brutality of Jimmy Johnson's training camp practices with the Cowboys is well known among players. He had to change a culture and mindset with the players. This is Sing's 1st year and he's trying to build a tough team. I like the idea of setting a physical tone early in his tenure. He can back off later in camp or in future years if need be.

Hightop, that was a GREAT line: "Hail Sparta- don your leather headgear and pass the band aids gentlemen- let's see what's what!"

Maybe the Crabdiva is just too scared of the practices to sign.
I really like what I hear coming from Singletary. This should be an exciting season.

According to Phim Simms in his book: "If I had to cite one factor that determines the winner in the NFL, it would be the team that is winning the physical battle."

"An old coach of mine once said 'It just comes down to which teams's big guys are going to beat up the other team's big guys to give the small guys a chance to have success.'"

I love what I'm hearing. The 49ers have been in "pansy land" for awhile now with NoWin-NoClue & look how that's turned out in the early going of each season? The 49er players NEED more of these types of practices with REAL urgency. That being said Sing also said that he will have a good read on when to ease off the pedal & give his players a break.

Professional Players are not afraid of work. Most of them have suffered through 10 years of football training camps in HS, College, and the Pros. This isn't Seal Training where your physical life is at stake. but None of them are pansies at this level.

Like I said Bill Walsh didn't believe in this and understood players better than any coach. He believed in conditioning, precision, and repetitive drilling with understanding your duties until it became automatic.

Not having injuries are just as important a factor in winning Championship as anything else. It is 20 games and there have been lots of examples of teams who trained viciously in August, performed well in Sept & Oct and failed in Nov & Dec.

The Saints were well known to suffer this fate.

I trust Singletary knows this and we are hearing some PR to stir up the fans.

uh-RAH!

The '85 Bears had some of the most intense practices in camp and during the season in NFL history.

Outside of Jim McMahon, they had almost NO injuries during the season.

Houston 9er thanks- and Brothertuna "I CAN"T HEAR YOU"!!!

I think the 9ers need to have a "hard-hitting" and physical..excuse me Fysical training camp because lets face it they have gotten very soft over the years. I don't have any fancy quotes or statistics to throw at you, but I think with Singletary the players have a crystal clear understanding of what is expected of them and if they don't perform they will pick splinters until they figure it out. So I think the discipline and the hard hitting approach is the way to go for now.

Will somebody get a hold of Crabtree's agent and smack that guy around a bit. You get picked 10th you get paid 10th money. He could be the missing link to a great season. The coaches are strong, the receivers can be strong, and the defense can be elite. Solid QB play and we are looking at an NFC West title. Not far fetched.

I agree with your comments on Walsh. But watching many of the pre season practices during his tenure, it was his offense that was seen doing the no tackle plays, and repetitive run throughs. Especially with his big time stars in the backfield and receiver positions.
But Seifert as DC and HC was a completely different story. Even when Walsh was HC Seifert loved to see the contact on defense. And when he took over as HC the whole team knew the big change would come, meaning physical practices and tackling drills. I remember stories from the Bay Area sports reporters wondering how the tough practices Seifert would demand would affect some of players on offense. Actually, Lott and other defensive players were laughing about what the offense was in store for with Seifert. And we all can say what we want about Seifert's tenure. But his teams were winners.

coach is sending a message...commitment, toughness, discipline. The boys will have an attitude this year which is a good thing and could be the tipping point to get us above .500 for the 1st time in a while. Pacino's locker room speech about being a game of inches and having to fight for very inch. Those inches are all around you. We win as a team and die as individuals. This will be some major team bonding. Remember Nolan would run practice and do the plays wrong and just say oh well, and move on? Not going to happen with Coach Sing. This team will be mentally and Fysically prepared for battle every week. That has to make a difference and get us a couple wins that pretty boy Nolan and girly man Martz would never have the sack to get. I'm ready to run through a brick wall myself right now.