Well, OTAs are all in the books and next time the team is together will be training camp. Some of my takeaways from these sessions:
1. the projected OL seems to still be, from left to right: Fant-Joeckel-Britt-Glow-Ifedi. Fant is about 20 lbs heavier than last year and has received high praise from PC on the work he's put it and where he is now vs last year.
2. ET & TL seem to be on track to recover from injuries and be ready for camp. Shead is well behind those guys, as expected. Also, RW showing no lingering signs of his leg injuries from last season. (BTW, have you guys seen that slick new shoe commercial with RW running around and being chased by 49ers on roller skates? it's fantastic.)
3. PC is over the moon on Graham and how he's become a complete player. Certainly a better starting point this time with him for not coming off a serious injury. 900+ YDs and 6 TDs is a great TE season by any standard, but maybe things are lining up this for him to be closer to what he was in NO.
4. Lacy seems to be on track with his fitness. He's made both weigh-ins so far, which means he came in at under 250. the in-season weight standards are less than 245, I believe. He looks pretty good, and so far I think this has to be a pretty positive sign.
5. MB has RW's back. Hard to imagine there would be a better ally for a QB to have than the leader of the DL, and admidst all the stories and rumors about locker room issues this off-season (including animosity towards Russell for being treated differently than others), it's good to hear Bennett come out and publicly back Russell.
Should be a good year with some great camp battles at WR, DB, and maybe even OL and backup QB.
I really don't care who scores the TDs so long as they are scored. If Graham gets us down the field and Lacy punches it in, to me that's just as good as any other way and it's still 6 points. If JG goes for 1k+, that's a monster TE year. But I fully understand what you're saying -- we seemingly have one of the biggest red zone mismatches in the league but don't always use him in that role to the extent that is expected.I'll say one thing on the Graham hype.
I don't really care what his numbers are at the end of the season. I care that the team figures out how to use their red zone weapon in the friggin red zone.