49ers Blog and Q&A

Seahawks defensive end Bruce Irvin, a player the 49ers had their eye on in the 2012 draft, has been suspended for the first four games of the season for violating the NFL's rules on performance enhancing substances. He's not getting support from 49ers fans or from one 49er.

"I have no sympathy for violators of NFL drug test," safety Craig Dahl tweeted after news broke of Irvin's suspension. "It's easy to know what goes in your body. If this was another sport what would happen?"

The 49ers and Seahawks, of course, have developed one of the best - if the not the best - rivalries in the NFL, and they will meet in Seattle in Week 2. Irvin, the Seahawks' first-round pick last year, stands to miss that Sunday night game. Dahl is in his first year with the 49ers but played on another NFC West squad, the Rams, for the last four seasons.

The Tacoma News-Tribune notes that Irvin is the sixth Seahawk to be busted for performance-enhancing substances since 2011. Cornerback Richard Sherman had a high-profile case last season that ultimately was reversed by the league. Of course, the 49ers aren't exactly angels on the topic. Linebacker Larry Grant, who spent the last two seasons in San Francisco and who is now a free agent, also has been suspended four games for a PED violation.

Irvin apologized and announced he would not appeal the punishment. 

"I want to apologize to my teammates, coaches and Seahawks fans for making a mistake when I took a substance that is prohibited in the NFL without a medical exemption," he said in a statement released by the team. "I am extremely disappointed in the poor judgment I showed and take full responsibility for my actions. I will not appeal the discipline and instead will focus my energy on preparing for the season so I can begin earning your trust and respect again. I look forward to contributing to the team the moment I return."

Irvin was a situational pass rusher last season and finished with eight sacks. He was one of several Seahawks in line to fill in for last year's starter, Chris Clemons, who suffered an ACL tear in the playoffs. Other candidates are free-agent pickups Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett.

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Another statement: Matt Barrows is going on week-long vacation/workation beginning Saturday. The 49ers will hold an OTA session next week (and the week after that and the week after that), and of course, the league will award Super Bowls L and LI on Tuesday. The Bay Area is the frontrunner for Super Bowl L.

Keep an eye out for a story of receiver Ricardo Lockette, who promises to be one of the more intriguing story lines this offseason. It is scheduled to run Sunday in The Bee.

-- Matt Barrows

At around noon on Tuesday, the Bay Area will learn whether it's hosting Super Bowl L, Super Bowl LI or neither.

Here's how it will play out. All three regions in the running for the two games - the Bay Area, South Florida and Houston - will give 15-minute presentations to the NFL owners who are holding a league meeting in Boston next week. The Bay Area and South Florida are bidding for Super Bowl L, which will be played in February 2016. The loser of that bid will take on Houston for the right to host Super Bowl LI in February 2017.

The NFL owners will vote by secret ballot and the ballots will be tabulated by NFL vice president of events Frank Supovitz. On the first vote, a region must get 75 percent of the votes to win. (In most years, there are three regions vying for the Super Bowl). If neither the Bay Area nor South Florida gets 75 percent, it goes to a second vote in which 75 percent also is needed. If that threshold still isn't met, a third vote is taken in which a simple majority is needed for the win.

At that point, Supovitz will hand the results to commissioner Roger Goodell, who will announce a winner. Then the voting will begin anew between the losing region and Houston. I'm told NFL Network will air the event.

It will be an upset if the Bay Area doesn't get Super Bowl L, the 50th game played and one that has more prestige than other recent games because it will reflect on all the past Super Bowls. It will be a colossal upset if the Bay Area gets shut out entirely.

The skinny on A.J. Jenkins: The former first-round wide receiver isn't as skinny anymore.

That, of course, was the one concern general manager Trent Baalke raised on draft day last year. Circumstances -- injuries and otherwise -- prevented Jenkins from a full offseason in the weight room while at Illinois, and as a result his strength and power weren't ideal last year. Indeed the slender receiver, who is listed at 192 pounds, seemed to spend a lot of time on the ground during practices last year.

"If there's an area where A.J.'s got to get better in, it's called the weight room, and he will," Baalke said. "He's had some unfortunate situations that haven't allowed him to fully attack the weight room in the offseason. Once he gets in there and figures out how to be a pro receiver - which we're very confident we can help him along in that area - we feel we've got a very good player. A very good fit for this system."

Nothing inhibited Jenkins this offseason. He spent six weeks with quarterback Colin Kaepernick and fellow wideout Ricardo Lockette in Atlanta where they concentrated on strength and speed training. It remains to be seen whether that work will translate to the field, but recent photos of Jenkins show a more bulked-up receiver, and the reports from Atlanta were positive as well.

Said Lockette: "I think A.J. will definitely surprise a lot of people this year. Last year, he took it as a building year. This year from what I've seen so far, it's night and day. I expect big things out of him. He expects big things out of himself, and Kap expects big things out of him. I think Niner nation and the Niner empire will be proud of what A.J. Jenkins brings to the field this year."

The 49ers are talking with former Jets and Browns head coach Eric Mangini about a consulting position, according to CBS' Jason LaCanfora.

Mangini has been out of football since being sacked by the Browns at the end of the 2010 season, and he's been working as an analyst for ESPN since. Mangini was a defensive coordinator in New England before the Jets hired him as head coach in 2006, and most of his coaching experience is on the defensive side. If he were hired by the 49ers, however, his role would be to consult with the offensive staff on dealing with certain defenses, LaCanfora writes.

That makes sense. Former Nevada coach Chris Ault invented the Pistol formation that has become all the rage in the NFL. But NFL teams were interested in hiring Ault not so much to aid their offenses but to better prepare their defenses for facing the Colin Kaepernicks and Robert Griffin III's of the league. The Chiefs recently hired Ault as a full-time consultant. (The 49ers were not one of the teams pursuing Ault).

Back to Mangini. He's only 42 and ostensibly is looking at a consulting job as a way of returning to the NFL. Is he looking at a future opening on the 49ers' staff?

The 49ers on Tuesday signed undrafted fullback Jason Schepler (6-2 and 274 pounds) to a three-year contract, bringing their roster to the 90-man offseason limit. The bottom of the roster is likely to fluctuate throughout the rest of the spring and summer, but here's how it stands now.

The second number listed below is the number of players the 49ers had at a position when the 2012 season ended. Rookies are in italics.

Quarterbacks: 4/3
Colin Kaepernick
Colt McCoy
Scott Tolzien
B.J. Daniels

Running backs: 7/4
Frank Gore
Kendall Hunter
LaMichael James
Anthony Dixon
Jewel Hampton
Marcus Lattimore
D.J. Harper

Fullbacks: 3/1
Bruce Miller
Alex Debniak
Jason Schepler

Wide receivers: 11/5
Michael Crabtree
Anquan Boldin
Kyle Williams
Mario Manningham
A.J. Jenkins
Quinton Patton
Ricardo Lockette
Marlon Moore
Chad Hall
Joe Hastings
Chuck Jacobs

Congratulations to Mark Uyeyama and the rest of the 49ers strength and conditioning staff. For the second time in three years, a 49er will be featured in the 'body issue' of ESPN the magazine. The latest bare-chested 49er in the issue will be Colin Kaepernick, whose body - and what's written on it - was scrutinized, celebrated and decried (by this guy) last season. Patrick Willis was featured in 2010. (Jim Harbaugh is lobbying for Lawrence "Adonis" Okoye in 2014).

Colin Kaepernick spent the divisional playoff game running through the Green Bay Packers defense and the offseason running through the Packers' minds. Green Bay's offseason, it seems, has been dedicated to making sure its defense never gets gouged like it did Jan. 12 when Kaepernick ran for 181 yards - an NFL record for a quarterback - and scored two touchdowns in a 45-31 win at Candlestick Park.

The team's coaches headed to Texas A&M in the offseason for a tutorial on how to stop the read-option attack. And they used their first-round draft pick on defensive end Datone Jones, who faced plenty of read-option defenses while at UCLA. The Green Bay Press-Gazette recently wrote about how Jones is well-suited to stopping quarterbacks like Kaepernick and Washington's Robert Griffin III.

"I thought he was pretty good," Jones said of Kaepernick's playoff game against Green Bay. "But I don't think they're going to be able to run him like that. He takes one good hit, there goes their season."

Here's the rub: Kaepernick may hold the single-game rushing record for a quarterback. But unlike Griffin's Redskins, the read-option was only a part - sometimes a small part - of the 49ers offense. He averaged six carries per game in his seven regular-season starts. In arguably his best game of the regular season against Chicago, he ran the ball four times for 10 yards. Yes, that number jumped to 16 carries against the Packers in the divisional playoffs. But a week later against the Falcons, he had two carries for 21 yards.

As if B.J. Daniels and Nate Montana weren't under enough pressure ... Midway through Saturday's rookie minicamp practice, a guy wearing a yellow Warriors cap and a white Warriors jersey walked onto the practice field. It was Colin Kaepernick, who hung around to watch most of the session. (The only other veteran observer has been Anthony Davis, whose brother, Andre, is getting a tryout). What did Kaepernick see?

Both quarterbacks have looked sharp at times, albeit in a shells-only, minimum-pass-rush, don't-touch-the-quarterback context. Daniels in particular isn't shy about flinging the ball downfield, and he connected on long downfield passes to receiver Brandon Carswell and tight end H-back MarQueis Gray. Montana connected deep with receiver Greg Wilson.

Daniels has a quicker release than Montana and is much more active in the pocket. Like Kaepernick, he also is comfortable running with the ball, and he had two long runs around the right side with Kaepernick observing from the sideline.

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As you would expect at this type of camp, there were highlights and lowlights for every player on Saturday. Montana, for example, was late or off target on a few throws. With none of his deep receivers open, he checked down to running back Isi Sofele, who was 10 yards away. The pass, however, may have been too hard, and it went through Sofele's hands and was intercepted by inside linebacker Nate Stupar. Stupar will compete this summer with Dan Skuta, Michael Wilhoite and draft pick Nick Moody for one of the backup roles behind Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman.

B.J Daniels never played any position but quarterback at South Florida. Quarterbacks, however, are nothing if not studious and prepared. And Daniels figured it was a good idea to diversify his portfolio in the run-up to the draft.

The 49ers' seventh-round draft pick rounded up the school's punter and worked on his punt-return skills throughout the spring in Tampa. That preparation came in handy at the end of Friday's initial 49ers practice when Daniels - he and Nate Montana are the only two rookies playing quarterback this weekend - was told to join a group of wide receivers and defensive backs taking turns at punt and kick returns.

Daniels didn't look at out place. "I'm comfortable with my hands and, like I said, anything I can do to help out is what I'm going to do," said Daniels, adding that he prepared himself for punt returns this spring, "just to keep my options open."

That versatility probably is Daniels' ticket to making the 49ers' roster this summer. The team needs players who can handle punt and kick returns after Ted Ginn signed with the Panthers in free agency. Kyle Williams and Kendall Hunter likely are the frontrunners for both duties, but both players are coming off of season-ending injuries suffered Nov. 25. The 49ers need options.

It turns out that four rookies are not taking part in the ongoing minicamp practices. Quinton Dial (toe) was standing next to fellow defensive lineman Tank Carradine (knee) throughout the practice. The others not practicing are running back Marcus Lattimore (knee) and offensive tackle Luke Marquardt (foot).

* There are only two quarterbacks at the session - draft pick B.J. Daniels and Nate Montana. Daniels also took some repetitions at running back early in the session and at punt- and kick returner later in the practice. He looked very natural running with the ball in his hands.

* From the no-duh department: Brit Lawrence Okoye is a project, a long-term project. But he certainly looked the part during today's minicamp. He's tall (6-6), long-armed and muscular. At the very least, he has the prototypical silhouette of a 3-4 defensive end. The question that will be answered over the next year or so is whether he has the demeanor and the drive. With Dial and Carradine out, Okoye was the de facto "starter" today. He certainly received a lot of repetitions and definitely was winded by the end of the 2 1/2-hour session. Prediction: He will be as sore as he's ever been in his life Saturday morning.

* The highlight of the day was the "box jump" drill during which the players first leaped, from a standing position, onto a 2 1/2- 3 1/2-foot-tall box. From there, they were told to immediately leap -- butt first -- onto a huge mattress. It was like watching 315-pound men do cannonballs into a pool. The most impressive leaper -- no surprise -- was Okoye, who got what can only be described as insane height for someone his size. He also excelled at the medicine ball toss at the end of practice, hurling it 18 yards behind him. That was about nine yards farther than anyone else. The tower at San Jose International is still wondering what was showing up on its radar around 5:30 p.m.