The 49ers have organized team activities scheduled for Monday and Tuesday at the club’s practice facility in Rosa Clara
This seems to suggest Singletary will be more involved in evaluating pro prospects with the departure of general manager Scot McCloughan about a month before the NFL draft.
Team president Jed York said that Singletary would focus his attention on coaching. But Monday and Tuesday, he will leave the coaching to his coordinators as he hits the road on a three-day scouting trip.
“Mike is concentrating on coaching,”
Singletary has delegated the coaching Monday and Tuesday to offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye, defensive coordinator Greg Manusky and special-teams coordinator Kurt Schottenheimer.
These will be rare pre-draft practices for a team that is not undergoing a coaching change. During the typical offseason program, players are not allowed to get on the field and work under the supervision of coaches.
But these two days of practices will give the new coaches an opportunity to get acquainted with the players. And it’ll give the new players an opportunity to get familiar with the coaches.
Nowhere is that more important than on the offensive line, where new coach Mike Solari would like to see what his group can do. With these two days of practices, Solari might form some opinions on what the offensive line needs to acquire in the draft.
“What we need to do is improve the offensive line and it’s an area we’re going to address,” Baalke said today. “We do have some good football players on this offensive line.”
Baalke said he spent a lot of time with Singletary talking about strategy and personnel when Singletary was an assistant coach.
“Mike’s a very inquisitive person,” Baalke said. “And we shared a lot of ideas, Mike and I, back and forth. So we had a real open dialogue going already. When he became the head coach, it then became Scot and him creating the dialogue back and forth and me acting as an intermediary on the outside to help Scot and to what as asked of me in the role I was in.
“Now it’s a shift back for me and coach to be put back in a situation where we have open dialogue again. And it’s not like we didn’t have open dialogue through the course of Scot’s tenure or coach’s tenure as head coach, it’s just now it’s a direct line I guess is the best way to say it.”
Baalke declined to say where he and Singletary are going, but he said they’ll take off Sunday on a three-day scouting trip.
“Tthat’s something that coach has gotten a lot more active in – going on the road and getting to see these guys, which I’m certainly OK with,” Baalke said. “Because the one strength of many that he has is he’s really able to look a guy in the eye and sit down and get a good feel for him when he can get his hands on a guy and get in one-on-one situations. So it really helps us from an evaluation standpoint.”
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