How do Raheem Mostert, Trey Sermon and 49ers running backs stack up, so far?
SANTA CLARA — Raheem Mostert remains the leader in the 49ers’ running back clubhouse. The incumbent – and insistent – starter has 31 carries in full-team work through seven practices.
He hasn’t always been the first-string running back, however.
Fantasy football tip: The 49ers will split carries among their vast options and not yield a 1,000-yard rusher for the fifth straight season under coach Kyle Shanahan.
Because Mostert wearrs a brace on his right knee, it caught some observers’ attention, even though he’s practiced with that brace for years.
He fired off a Tweet last Thursday night insisting: “I am NOT injured and to the media trying to make something out of NOTHING, I won’t allow it. I wear a knee brace in practice for PREVENTION and for my LONGEVITY in this league. … I won’t allow you to put me into your ‘hole’ of being old, washed up and injured. I’m just getting started!!”
Could rookie Trey Sermon start, instead?
Because the 49ers rotate running backs — and wide receivers and tight ends — through different units, Sermon also has seen first-team work. Sermon’s 26 carries are the team’s second-most, as expected out of the third-round pick from Ohio State.
The third-most carries are from a late entrant: Trey Lance, the rookie quarterback who’s taken off on 24 runs, a majority of which are zone-read keepers.
These aren’t official stats, mind you. But they are an idea of how the 49ers are mixing all their backs into the mix, except for Jeff Wilson Jr., who tore his knee’s meniscus in May and is out a couple more months. All running backs have at least two receptions, and none more than Elijah Mitchell’s four in team drills.
Former New York Giants leading rusher Wayne Gallman (17 carries) and fifth-round pick Elijah Mitchell (16 carries) are off to impressive starts in camp, especially of late. JaMycal Hasty has had some hiccups in his encore from a shortened rookie season (collarbone fracture) but still shows elusive burst.
Shanahan said the younger backs ran like veterans and without hesitation before the pads even came on Monday, which is when a truer evaluation began.
And what are coaches looking for in their rushers? Offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel wants to see how they balance, their center of gravity at the point of contact, if their “shoulders are over his toes,” and if they will fight for extra yards.
Here is how McDaniel views how three rookie rushers are faring in their debut camp:
McDaniel on Lance’s zone-read decision making:
“Well, it’s a work in progress, which is what you would, if you’re doing anything that’s really that difficult, you probably shouldn’t be elite at it right from the jump. So that’s one of the reasons why we have to rep it so much, rep all the plays so much, is because it isn’t easy.
“So he’s right where we’d want them in terms of he’s in the developmental stage of all of it some plays are good, some plays are bad, but we try to focus on the bad, so there can be more good.”
McDaniel on Sermon:
“I’ve been pumped with Trey because he’s come a long way in a short period of time with us in terms of our techniques. We run around the corner a ton and realistically, a majority of all the stuff that he did in college was from the gun. So you’re under center and when you’re under center, you have to listen to a snap count. When you’re in gun, you can kind of get away from looking at the ball snapped and not really going off the snap count. So those types of things, he’s been growing and growing. And then the second part of the question?”
McDaniel on Mitchell:
“You can see at the point of contact that he is striking defenders. We call it shoulder punched. You’ve seen [RB] Jeff Wilson [Jr.] do it a bunch. So in practice we see great vision and we see a guy that is not afraid of contact and should be pretty good after it. But, again we’ll let him show us all that when the preseason games start”