SANTA CLARA – The Niners’ 260-pound running back Brandon Jacobs spoke in the media tent for the first time on Thursday. He discussed the NFC Championship Game and his first impression of Jim Harbaugh’s offensive playbook. Here’s what Jacobs said.

Q: Are there things in Harbaugh’s playbook that have surprised you so far?

JACOBS: Yes – not as far as the plays, but as far as the formations. There’s a lot of different formations. It’s challenging picking it up. I’m doing pretty good. I only have to ask two questions a day versus 10.

Q: So the plays are fairly standard, but the formations that are more complex?

JACOBS: The plays – there are some differences. There might be one block that makes it different than the way other teams run it around the league, but Coach Roman understands that you want to run that stuff out of different formations so no one can ever pick up what you’re doing – they can watch as much film as they want.

Q: So many guys here seem to be motivated by their loss in the NFC Championship Game. What type of conversations have you had with them about that game?

JACOBS: We talk about some turnovers, and I just say, “I don’t feel bad for you.” We try not to talk about it. I know that’s a dagger for some guys – it would be a dagger for me – so I try not to ever bring it up. The only time we talk about it is if someone else brings it up. There’s really no need to talk about it because it’s gone now.

Q: Did Harbaugh talk to you about that when he signed you?

JACOBS: We talked about the Ahmad (Bradshaw) fumble that was reversed. He’s still talking about that. I told him I don’t feel bad for him. It hurts. Frank (Gore) talked about it this morning in meetings. You could hear it in his voice – he’s angry. I’d be angry as well. No question about it.

SANTA CLARA – Greg Roman spoke at the podium this afternoon and discussed the red zone offense, the running back rotation and his impression of undrafted rookie wide receiver Nathan Palmer. Here’s a transcript, courtesy of the 49ers.

Opening statement:

“Hey, good morning. How many practices have we had now? [media response: 6] Yeah, you lose count sometimes. It’s all about the next day. [Head] Coach [Jim Harbaugh] was just talking about how every day is a new day and it truly is. We’re moving into red zone today. We’ve had some great, great work. Obviously when you work against a defense like ours, as an offense, it’s the old saying, as iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another. When you play against our defense, from the front to the edges, with our OLBs on the edge, our secondary and how the play and how they disguise, it just provides a great challenge and just makes you better day-in and day-out. So, watching our defense compete against our offense is always good for the 49ers. It’s good for us as an offense to play against that kind of defense. So, we’re moving into the shorter field today in the red area. The windows are tighter. Things happen faster. All the guys are really working hard, dialed in. They’re getting a lot thrown at them and we do that on purpose. We believe in the whole-part-whole method. Things happen fast on game day so we throw a lot of info at them. Any questions?”

With everything you studied from last season, what do you attribute most of the red zone problems to?

“I probably made this statement before, but we were a hair off quite a bit, not nearly as sharp as we needed to be. Red zone statistics can be deceiving because if you’re three scores up and you’re in the red zone and you decide to play it a certain or a conservative way to make it a four-score game, make it a three-score game, make it a two-score game, the statistics are not going to be reflective of the outcome. I believe we were third in the NFL last season in red zone scoring, which just speaks volumes about our quarterback, Alex’s [Smith] understanding of the game, where we’re at in the game. You can reflect back to Detroit [vs. the Lions on October 16, 2011] and New Orleans [vs. the Saints, January 14, 2012, NFC Divisional Playoffs] where you must score. Well that’s certainly different than, any score will get you up two to three scores. We’re in it to win it, but getting back to your question though, were we as good as we wanted to be? Heck no. Heck no. We didn’t have enough time on task last year to be where we wanted to be in the red zone. It was a matter of execution more than anything. Last year, you’ve got this much time and what are you going to be good at? What’s going to help you win? Where are you going to allocate your resources, allocate your time? Once we got comfortable with certain things, at a certain point in the year we were able to devote more time in the red area because we had to get other things nailed down first. It’s a great lesson on history there, but irrelevant right now. This year it’s all about taking the next step down there in the tight field where it’s a challenge to the offense. You must be precise. You must be sharp.Feel really good about the work we got this spring as a lead in.”

Have you done any type of depth chart juggling yet or is it pretty much the way you reported this season?

“I’d say it’s pretty similar. I’d say it’s very similar. I think guys’ stock go up and down every day. Every day, every practice, every day their stock does something. We’re certainly aware of that and as we work together, you get a better feel for each guy and how they deal with the day-in and day-out. We’re pretty regimented. We are not just going to do, ‘Hey this is what we do, and that’s it.’ There’s always information, plays, situations being thrown at these guys and you get to see how they react to it.”

When you guys split up and you go first string on one field and second string on the other, I don’t know if you do this every time. But I notice at QB Alex Smith and QB Josh Johnson will be one field, and QB Colin Kaepernick and QB Scott Tolzien on another. Why is that?

“There’s nothing to it. It’s just a rep, a function of repetition, allocation really. When they get tallied up at the end of the day, we generally find that they’re pretty even and that’s what we aim for. It’s different at times where we might be working our shifts and motions against the defense  on one field. We might be working our bunch package on the other field. Well, this quarterback needs to be able to work on his pre-snap management, therefore he’ll be on this field and it might switch. So, all that’s orchestrated with thoughts put into it.”

Why wouldn’t your starting quarterback have far more snaps than the other three?

“Because when we split up we just buy so many more reps. If you follow what I’m saying.”

Would you ever change this format?

“No, no. Absolutely not. No.”

Are you calling plays through the helmet like you would in games?

“At times. There are certain periods we are. Yeah.”

Are you doing that today in the red zone drills?

“No. Today we won’t be doing that, but tomorrow we will. We actually got new and improved headsets around the NFL which are much easier to use, much more what you would expect in the year 2012.”

How are the headsets different?

“To make a long story short, the other ones, you push the button and you’ve got to wait. You hear a beep and then you can talk. That beep would sometimes be inconsistent. There was one time when I was doing it and it happened to be on the same frequency as an airline in a certain city and it was a critical situation in the game and all you hear is Southwest pilots talking. So, these are very efficient. You push the button. You talk. They hear, and here we go.”

Did you land the plane?

“No. Never checked to see if it got in.” [laughing]

Can you talk about RB LaMichael James’ speed and how you’re planning on using him in the offense?

“LaMichael James is fast. How we are going to use him I will not discuss because we’re not going to talk strategy. That doesn’t help us win. But when you really look at LaMichael and the body of work he put together in college, he was a very effective inside and outside runner. I think there’s a lot of people that just watched their offense, which is a great offense. They do a great job there at Oregon and they thought, ‘Oh he’s just an outside guy.’ He’s a tough, in-between-the-tackles runner in college and now it’s a matter of just him adapting to that in the pros. We’re throwing it all at him and we’re going to just evaluate and get a feel for what he’s good at. There’s a general misconception among some people that think just because a guy’s not a big guy he can’t run inside. I think we have the guy that proves that theory wrong, and that’s [RB] Frank [Gore], who’s not a giant but he has such incredible vision, foot quickness and his mind and his feet work together. LaMichael’s a guy that has really good vision as well. So, I think you can probably see him when he plays run inside, run outside, run pass routes, but it’s a curve. He’s doing a really good job as a rookie coming in. And it’s day-to-day. He’s right where we thought he would be.”

Is it a tough transition? Because probably when he (LaMichael James) ran at Oregon inside, things were spread out. There was a lot more daylight. Does he have to adapt to running in tighter quarters?

“I think so. I think that’s an accurate statement. Running the football in college is totally different than running it in the NFL, in the sense that the defensive lines in the National Football League are so much more physical and adept and skilled, man-for-man. In the college world you’ll find a guy here, a guy there that’s a difference maker, but you can generally find people you can pick on, not so here. They’re so well trained and the coaches understand how to fix problems. If somebody’s hurting them with something, in the National Football League, you better believe they’ll have an answer. It’s football at the highest level and it’s an adaptation for every rookie.”

What do you remember about LaMichael at Oregon? I know you ran the offense at Stanford, but any memories from when he played you?

“Bad memories [laughter]. We beat him one year and I remember it was a race to outscore them. I just remember he took one run and just ran right down the hashes for about 60 or 70 yards, it was a blur. All I remember he was very efficient and very effective. A lot of respect there.”

Does it look like you’ll get WR Michael Crabtree back today?

“Michael is working through something right now. I think you’d probably want to talk to [head coach] Jim [Harbaugh] about that. I have a sneaking suspicion you would probably get the verbatim answer that I just gave you.”

One more about LaMichael, as you said you saw him in college and saw him a little bit before the draft. Is there anything that has surprised you? Like, I didn’t know this about this guy?

“Very impressed with him as a person, a great kid to be around, great kid to talk to, class young man. I think our scouting department does such a good job here of looking deeper than the statistics. They look beyond the on-the-field stuff, so I think they painted a really good picture for the kind of young man he is for us. Not real surprised with anything with LaMichael.”

What about RB Brandon Jacobs? He said a couple months ago that is goal is to run with more power, more burst, are you seeing any of that out of him?

“Most definitely. Brandon is a guy, and you think back on his career, when he gets his shoulders squared to the line of scrimmage and gets a forward lean, he is something. He’s a unique running back. We’ve seen a good amount of that. The big thing that I’m impressed with, with Brandon, one of the many things, is he’s very critical of himself. He might make a great run and hit it with just some big power. He’ll still say, ‘I could have done this better, I could have done that better.’ That’s impressive (trait). We like that, we like that, that’s what we look for. He’s been a great fit.”

I don’t remember seeing him, he may have done this in New York, it doesn’t come to mind when you think of Brandon Jacobs catching passes out of the backfield. He seemed to be doing quite a bit of that in practice. Is that something that you want him to focus on more so than maybe what he did in New York?

“As we present the offense to these guys, it’s important that they’re not just living in a little box. They’ve got to experience and do everything and that’s when we sit down and say ok let’s focus on this with him, let’s focus on that. Everybody on our offense, to a man, is probably going to practice anything we do at least once. That’s a very important part of the process. He’s done a great job of that. He caught a swing route the other day and it was like, hmmmm, pretty good. We’re learning about our players each and every day.”

Two part question on RB Anthony Dixon. Jim Harbaugh said that he had come to you guys and asked to get some reps at fullback. How’s that going? Is it a major mindset change for him to go from a halfback, a guy that’s trying to avoid contact, to a fullback, who’s got to be seeking it?

“I think there’s some accuracy there. The fullback position requires a lot of details, how to approach a block, how to finish a block, how to adjust when everything changes in front of you. The great thing about Anthony is his athleticism allows him to make those adjustments like a running back would. An effective fullback, unless you’re talking about just the old-school hammer, the picture is going to change on him and instead of going in the A-gap now he’s going to have to slide to the B-gap. We like that in our offense. [FB] Bruce Miller has an uncanny ability to do that. Anthony’s got that down.He just needs to work through the high speed, short area collisions, and winning those battles early and winning them late. I think the time he’s had on special teams has really gotten him ramped up for that because there’s so much short area hand-to-hand combat, and avoid and blocking on teams. So he’s no stranger to that.”

How do you split those reps in the whole backfield?

“It’s day-to-day, it’s period-to-period. Jim is instrumental in that he does a great job of seeing everything and looking at all the different areas, each position balancing things out. It’s day-to-day. With the numbers we have and the ability to split groups, it just gets everybody reps, gets the young guys more experience than they normally would have. It’s all positive.”

WR Nathan Palmer has made some nice plays in practice, what’s your impression of him?

“Very positive, very positive. I like his demeanor, his athleticism, quickness, balance, ball skills, attention to detail, knowing what to do. Making instinctive adjustments that you can’t coach, or you can talk about coaching, but not everybody gets. Very positive. He’s done a great job. Nate, day-in, day-out, his stock’s going up.”

SANTA CLARA – Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio spoke in the media tent today, and here’s a transcript of what he said, courtesy of the 49ers.

How much more of the defense are you going to be able to install with this training camp compared to last year?

“Not much more. We pretty much got everything we wanted to put in last year. And then as a matter of fact, in training camp last year we installed more, and as the season wore on we stopped using some of the stuff. So, we kind of evolved into a package that best fit our players last year and that’s what we stuck with. And each and every week involves some adjustments that you have to make based upon your opponent, and that’s what we did. But, our attitude last year was to expose them to as much as we could, so if we needed it we had it there. We didn’t want to hold anything back and then say, jeez I wish we did this, or wish we had done that. So, we tried to expose them to most everything that we could last year even though it was tight. And then we evolved into what we were.”

Now that you know your personnel will get better, are you a little bit more focused this year?

“Maybe at this point compared to last year at this time, but we’re no more focused than we were as the season got into it last year, as we got into game three, four, five, six and on, we evolved to who we were.”

The only major change, really the only change in your defense is LB Aldon Smith every down. Does that change at all? Just getting a read for what he does? How to put him in the best situations in first and second downs?

“Not really. He’s just going to be expected to go in there and take over for [LB] Parys [Haralson], and do as well as Parys did or better. And we expect him to be a right outside linebacker and fulfill all the duties that the right outside linebacker has to fulfill. Now obviously no matter who you’re speaking about, whether it be Aldon at right, or [LB] Ahmad [Brooks] at left, or an inside linebacker or a DB, you’re always going to tailor it some to best suit your personnel, that’s always a goal, but within what’s best for the 11.”

I know it’s early, but how has he made that transition from a year ago where he wasn’t standing up too much?

“Well, obviously he’s a lot farther along right now than he was last year at this time. He’s got to practice a lot last year during the season there. He got all this offseason work. So, he’s much farther along than he was compared to a year ago, but he’s still nowhere near what he needs to be, and it’ll be a work in progress. He’ll be better in game four and five than he is in game one. He’ll be better in game eight or nine than he was in five. It may not always be visible to people because there’s a lot of little things involved, but he’ll be better as we keep going.”

What about the rookie LB Cam Johnson? Could you tell that he was dealing with something back in spring with his knee and needed to have that taken care of?

“We knew he had something when we drafted him. And he tried to come in here and play with it and it kept bothering him. So, we went in there and tried to get it fixed, it was minor surgery. Of course, minor surgery is for somebody to say that didn’t have the surgery done to them. It wasn’t minor in his mind, I’m sure. But, he’s back out there. He’s still not 100 percent. He’ still limping around a little bit, but he’s just going to have to fight through that.”

Were you able to tell anything from him given that injury? Were you able to see whether he’s got pass rush ability, drop back ability?

“No, it’s hard to see pass rush ability anyway in the offseason without the pads on. But no, he was hindered a pretty good bit by he was always limping and dragging it, so it was hard to evaluate.”

When you have as much success as you guys had defensively last year, what do you throw at these guys this year to keep them from becoming complacent?

“Well, first I don’t think our guys will get complacent. Everybody that’s on this defense that was here last year that is still here, that was their first playoff victory in their careers, all of them. And it was their first trip to the Championship Game for all of them. And I don’t think we have anybody that’s going to be satisfied with just that. I think if anything else it wets their appetite even a little bit more, and their looking for more. So, I don’t think complacency will be an issue.”

Are you happy with the linebackers? Last year you were very thin, but this year there are a lot of bodies on the roster. Are you very excited for the competition?

“Well, you’re always excited for competition, that’s the greatest motivator there is. Whether we have more competition or not remains to be seen. We have more bodies, but we don’t know the quality of those guys yet.”

A couple of your DB’s, S Dashon Goldson the other day said as good as the defense was last year, there were areas that he felt could be sharpened. Can you talk about areas that you felt weren’t quite 100 percent last year?

“Well, you always can improve, nothing’s perfect. And areas that we can improve in, it’s a little bit everywhere. I don’t think we were seriously lacking in any area, to where it’s a glaring weakness, or was, but yet we can get better in every area. Our coverage can get better, our rush can get better. We can play the run a little better. We can handle the hard situations a little bit better. I think it’s a little bit everywhere more than one area in particular.”

You’ve got a guy, LB Eric Bakhtiari, who’s been on the practice squad of a lot of teams. He made one active roster. What qualities does he have that has kept him around the NFL, and what does he need to improve on to make the jump?

“Well, he’s an intelligent player, number one. He’s got good football instincts. He plays the game hard. He likes football. He’s just always going to be one of those guys that’s always fighting there right at the end, whether you make it or not, one of those guys on the proverbial bubble every year. And that’s what has happened to him every camp he’s been in with each and every team that he’s been with. And it’ll be the same for him here. He’ll be the first to tell you that, I’ve told him. He knows that.”

You mentioned in the offseason program, that with these two-way guys you get into sort of a fine line. You don’t want to take away from what they do. And I noticed DT Demarcus Dobbs, yesterday was on the offense. Where is he as far as his development as a defensive lineman? And do you start to get concerned that he is spending time on the offensive side of the ball?

“Well, we all get concerned about it, both the offensive coaches and us as defensive coaches. Because every day that he spends over there is one less day he’s spending with us, and he’s still a young player. But, the big picture says if he’s our fourth, fifth, or sixth defensive lineman and he can fulfill a role on offense also, that allows him number one, to improve his chances to make the team. And number two, if he makes the team allows him a better opportunity to be dressed as one of the 45 on the game day, you guys know you have to deactivate seven or eight guys every game. So, it makes him more versatile. Does it affect his development in one position? Yes, it does. There’s no way around that, that’s why we practice. But, in his case right now, it’s better for the team, and better for him and his chances to make the team.”

Is he going to be defense today?

“Yes, today he’ll be defense.”

Is it just every other day?

“We kind of go—we’ve kind of started it off because we’re in no pads, we’re going every other day right now. Then when we get the pads on maybe we’ll give him two-a-days, two days in a row at one side. We’ll just keep mixing it up.”

He made such a splash as a pass rusher in the preseason last year. What are the areas he needs to improve upon this year?

“Well, he did a good job in the offseason and really ever since he’s been here, even during last year, of improving his strength and improving his body. His body wasn’t developed to the point that it should have been when we got him. I’m talking from a strength, speed and quickness standpoint. And he’s worked extremely hard on that, been one of our best workers. It doesn’t look like it to you, he still probably weighs about the same that he weighed last year at this time, but it’s a different 285 pounds than it was last year. And he’s much better prepared physically to be an NFL player.”

Do you want DT Justin Smith and DT Ray McDonald to play fewer snaps this year than they did last year?

“Not necessarily. Yeah, I think I told you guys before, with defensive linemen, if you’re good enough on defense, and hopefully we will be, where you get a bunch of three and outs, or you get where teams have one first down and then you make them punt. And all your drives are maybe three plays, four plays, or five plays; they can play the numbers of plays that they played. It’s when you start getting eight, nine, 10, or longer drives against you and you have a couple of those in the game, is when they start to get fatigued, and you’ll see them come out more then. So, it really kind of depends upon their health, obviously, and then what type of defense we’re playing.”

Is DT Ricky Jean Francois, is he your backup across the board? Or are you going to focus him in on nose, or a specific position?

“No, he can play all three spots up there. So, he can go in and play for anybody at anytime.”

Is he another guy who spent a lot of time in the training room this year and transformed his body a bit?

“I think he’s done that throughout his career. Even before we got here, I think he was doing that. And he looks to be in really good shape now. Ricky’s a hard worker. He’s a good player. And we have no concerns about him from conditioning or where he’s at physically.”

Last year you guys broke camp with seven defensive linemen. Is that more than likely not going to be the case this year?

“I think it’s too early to say that. A lot of that depends upon the numbers at other positions. It’s pretty easy as we get going into this after we play our third and fourth preseason game, it’ll be pretty easy for all of you to pick out 40 guys that make this team. It’s that last five that are hard decisions. And then it becomes the factor of the numbers at other positions. Last year, we kept seven of those guys because we had seven that we liked and we didn’t want to expose any of them to the waiver system. We had two young guys in Dobbs and [NT Ian] Williams that we felt if we didn’t keep we might lose them. So, that was part of the thought process there to keeping seven. And as it turned out, all seven of them played. Obviously Williams and Dobbs didn’t play a lot, but they were active for games.”

At the end of last year, you said Aldon would be a really good player as long as he stayed humble and hungry. Did what happen in the offseason make you raise any questions about if he has any tangibles to be a great player?

“No, I still think he’s humble and hungry as it relates to football. I think he got himself into a couple unfortunate situations. And I think he’s learned from both of them. And hopefully those will be far and few between as we move forward. We’ve spoken. He and I have talked about it and he’s talked to other people about it. I think Aldon’s mature enough and smart enough to know the difference of what he needs to do and what he doesn’t need to do. And hopefully he’ll do a better job of avoiding those situations in the future. I have confidence that he will.”

SANTA CLARA – Alex Smith spoke last in the media tent on Friday. Here’s what he said, courtesy of the 49ers.

[WR] Randy [Moss] was saying it’s a work in progress, the offense, the passing game, and fitting in with you. Do you feel that way too?

“For sure, I guess I kind of always feel like it is. You’ve never arrived. You’re never there and we certainly aren’t there. You’re constantly striving for perfection, striving to get better and with the NFL, with the way it is today, the team will never be exactly the same. Things are constantly changing. You’re going to have new faces coming in, young and old and you adjust. It’s a whole new identity. It’s totally unique in itself,  especially in the perimeter unit when you add new faces. It takes a little bit.”

Have you and Randy done anything special off the field, go to dinner, anything like that?

“You mean like a date? [laughter]

 To build that chemistry?

“No one-on-one date. We’re not there just yet. We’re still more on the courting stage [laughter]. No, we’ve hung out a lot at OTA’s and team functions and stuff. During the offseason we spent some time together, but we’re not exclusive [laughter].”

Is it intimidating at all to be a quarterback with Randy Moss?

“Yeah, for sure. At first it definitely can be. As a guy you grew up watching, a veteran that does so much, the great thing about being around Randy is he makes keeps it light. He makes it fun to play out there. So that vanished pretty quick. He’s a great communicator out there. A guy that played that much, he sees things really well, communicates really well. So, it’s really been great working with him. Honestly I’ve learned a lot.”

Is your impression of him now different than what it was before?

“I guess I didn’t have an impression before besides the player he was and the special player he was, didn’t know what to think. I heard some from [Lions QB] Shaun [Hill]. Shaun Hill played with him and had nothing but good things to say. So other than that I didn’t really have an impression.”

At the end of last year, you talked about how this offense hasn’t scratched the surface of what it could be. Do you have an idea of where that surface is now, is it even more know because of the player’s you’ve added?

“I just think, no question, we’ve gotten better. Without a doubt, I mean naturally that part of it, I just think that this offseason we have gotten better. Not just in the sense that we have a year under our belt, but I really feel that personnel-wise we’ve gotten better. We’ve gotten more depth. But yeah, I think the next steps, the biggest one is consistency. Just doing that day-in and day-out, play after play after play, game-in and game-out. There’s always going to be ups and downs, but just not the fluctuation that we had last year at times.”

Is it going to look differently, schematically?

“For us the goal is to always be really balanced. We don’t want to be one-dimensional. We don’t want to be predictable. That’s not going to be us. We’re constantly going to be doing things a little different and whatever it takes to win. However we field the best matchup that week, the best way to attack a scheme, those types of things. It’s hard to put a finger on it.”

Did you throw more in this last year than how many other years?

“Tough to say, I learned a lot last year, for sure, both from teammates and especially coaches.  Learned a lot just going through those experiences as well, getting to the postseason, playing in those types of games. Certainly you kind of just have to go through that in order to grow in that aspect. But I’ve learned a lot from a lot of the people I’ve been around, coaches and players. Been fortunate to have been around a lot of great coaches. But anytime [QB coach] Geep [Chryst], G-Ro [offensive coordinator Greg Roman], certainly coach Harbaugh, I mean the guy played the position that long. I’ve got a lot of guys that I’ve tried to soak up information from and learned quite a bit last year.”

You have some fast receivers on this team besides Moss. Is it challenging or different to throw the deep ball to him?

“Speed is a factor. The other thing certainly is his size and his ability to play the ball in the air. Those are things, I mean we talked about throwing together and learning. It is a process. I think that’s part of it. Certain guys are better at different things. They have better strengths, different strengths. So, no question those are things you just continue to work on.”

You said after the NFC Championship game, the best thing was to come back and light a fire. How long did that burn in your gut?

“I think that feeling is still there. As much as we all talk about pressing delete on last year, I mean obviously a lot of excitement going to the playoffs and the 13-3 and things like that and getting a playoff win. But I don’t think that anyone is pressing delete on the taste in our mouth. Working that hard to get that close to your goal and not get there is definitely, I think even more bitter than some of the losing seasons that we’ve been a part, that I’ve been a part of. So, no question, that is still there. Whether or not it’s a good thing, we’ll see.”

This is your second season with Greg Roman. Will you be adding new things or going deeper into his playbook?

“A better question for him. The first thing I’d say is both, get better at what we’re doing. Some things are going to stay the same, let’s get better at them, more consistent. At the same time let’s take steps in different directions. We’ve got a large catalog of film and things to look at from last year and really look at, ‘Hey what are we going to do better, do we need to scratch some things.’ Things like that.”

How curious are you about the battle for the backup job behind you? You know those guys well, you’ve been at meeting with them. How’s that going?

“Yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time, I mean we spend a ton of time together. They’re all very, they’re all good guys. We’ve got a great group in that quarterback room. I’ve said this before, this is by far this is the most talented group I’ve been a part of, as far as top to bottom and depth. Four guys that I really feel like can play at a high level. You just don’t see that. And they all have different strengths, they’re all extremely bright and they work extremely hard. That’s the thing, so no question. I’ve got the best view in the house I feel like. But no question, I feel like those guys push me. All three of those guys push me every day they come out and they all have a great mentality. When they step in there, they all go after it and it’s competitive and it’s great to have in the quarterback room. I don’t think you’d want it any other way.”

You seem to have a lot of depth at wide receiver. Jim said you guys have five number one receivers, you have the rookies too. At some point in camp, do you just sort of have to narrow it down to really build a relationship, a chemistry, a rapport with only a couple of those guys?

“Luckily that’s not my job. I do think that’s a tough job, this year more than ever.  A bunch of talented guys, a lot of depth. But no, for me I’m not thinking about that. I really step into the huddle and no matter who’s in there I feel confident that those guys are going to know what they’re going to do, they’re going to win. I think that’s the great thing about having this problem is that’s what the season’s going to be like. Last year was a great testament to that and how many guys we had to play outside. The next guy’s in and he’s got to go. That’s the great aspect of football I think. And I think that’ll happen obviously as touches goes and the reps just kind of work themselves out. As you move on towards camp and you move into the heart of camp that stuff kind of takes care of itself.”

This is going to be your first full training camp with Michael Crabtree. What can you guys do with that full camp that you haven’t been able to do in the past?

“He had such a great spring and summer. I think just keep doing what he’s doing, what we’re doing. I felt like he had a great offseason. And I think just continue to work hard. The guy does so many things, he can do so many things. You need a guy in that sense to just keep getting better. Just keep getting, like I said, more consistent and just continue to strive to get better.”

How much did getting so close last year, is that motivation this year?

“I kind of answered with the other question. Certainly it’s still there, you still have that taste. But, it’s a brand new year. How can I say it? None of us are dwelling on what happened last year. You learn from it and move on. That’s the great nature of the NFL I think. There are no easy games. Everybody’s in it every year. Unlike any other professional sport, this is the sport I really feel like year-in and year-out, it’s anybody’s. Whoever can put it together. There’s so much parody across the league as far as talent. So, you have to earn everything. You have to start over. And it really starts today.”

SANTA CLARA – Aldon Smith spoke to reporters for the first time since his stabbing on June 30, and here’s what he said.

Q: There’s been a lot of concern around the country for your well-being. What was the saddest part for you?

ALDON SMITH: Letting everyone down was probably the saddest part. I’m back to 100 percent and I’m ready to go.

Q: You felt like you let who down?

ALDON SMITH: After the incidents that happened and the expectations that were set for me, I feel like I let the fans and everybody down.

Q: What has that done for you?

ALDON SMITH: Just helped my focus out. I’m focused more than ever, not to say that I wasn’t focused at the beginning.

Q: How scary was this? Did you see your career flash before your eyes?

ALDON SMITH: I wouldn’t say that. You definitely think about what happened and how you want to be perceived and how you want your career to go.

Q: Did you get stitches?

ALDON SMITH: Staples.

Q: Do you expect to feel your injury as you practice?

ALDON SMITH: I’m good. I’m alright. I’m all healed up and ready to go.