49ers Blog and Q&A

The 49ers usually have Tuesdays off, but with a bye week coming up, they had a short practice in the morning. It's an advantage for Shaun Hill, who as the backup over the last eight weeks, hasn't had a lot of chances to throw to the team's top receivers. In fact, Hill hasn't practiced with the first-team offense since Aug. 6.

When Hill entered the game Sunday, he seemed to get the 49ers into the same methodical rhythm that was his calling card last season. Hill, however, noted that with a big second-half lead, the Seahawks were taking away the deep passes and allowing him the underneath options. He disagreed with the notion that Martz will have to alter his downfield offense to fit Hill's strengths.

"No," Hill said. "Everything's going to be the same. We're going to game-plan around our opponent the same as we always have."

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Mike Singletary was asked today why he chose to be so public with his rebuke of Vernon Davis this week. Indeed, Singletary's oh-so-direct approach was a surprise to Davis. "Well, it was different," Davis said Monday afternoon. "I didn't expect him to come at me the way he did. I guess that's his way of coaching. You know, some coaches they'll say something to you discreetly and handle it when they get inside (the locker room). I guess he wanted to handle it in that fashion. I guess that's the way he does it."

Here's what Singletary had to say on the subject:

"You know what, I've got to be very honest. This is a day and time where everybody wants to be so private, and this is my business and be nice to these guys ... You know what, I love these guys. I really do. And at the same time, I know Vernon wants to win. And at the same time, I know that he wants to be a man. So the comments that I made, there's nothing about the comments that I wouldn't have said to him. So for me to say, 'Well, that's a private matter.' That's the way I felt and I wasn't thinking about being politically correct. Now if it was something private that he did and it was no one else's business, that's something I would not do. But to me, the team needs to know that it will not be tolerated. Everyone needs to understand that if this is the course that you want to take, chances are this is the way we're going to deal with it. Nothing big and bad and bold - it's nothing like that. To me it's just carrying out the nature of events and just being real."

Is that how you were coached?

"Oh, I'm a lot nicer than I was coached in Chicago," Singletary said with a big smile before mentioning Buddy Ryan's name as evidence...

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Controversial player + personal blog usually = disaster for a team's PR staff. (See: Owens, Terrell, circa 2003). But the 49ers' PR staff must be breathing a sigh of relief after logging into Vernon Davis' Yardbarker blog this morning. Davis says many of the same things he told the media yesterday afternoon and comes off as (mostly) contrite following his early trip to the showers Sunday.

-- Matt Barrows