Jason O. Watson-USA TODAY Sports
Every real San Francisco 49ers fan has a few things engraved in their memory. The five Super Bowls, “The Catch”, “The Drive”, Steve Young getting the monkey off his back and unfortunately the 49ers’ loss in this year’s Super Bowl. A lot of really traumatizing memories, for me, at least. My psychiatrist says that the best way to get over it is to talk about it. I’d rather just suffer the pain than relive it, but I digress.
After having a dominating defense and an offense on the precipice of becoming truly elite with talent at every position, the 49ers’ major weakness last year was their special teams. One of those engraved memories from the Super Bowl was Jacoby Jones taking the opening kickoff of the second half to the house, almost extinguishing any chance the Niners had to come back. Niners GM Trent Baalke has identified this weakness and wants to make it a strength.
The 49ers cut ties with K David Akers after an up-and-down — but mostly down — season and signed the best kicker in the AFC last year, Phil Dawson. San Francisco also signed players that will be primarily focused on just special teams. LB Dan Skuta, S Ray Vitrone and WR Kassim Osgood were all at one point special teams aces and all have a shot at making the 53 man roster — one of the toughest battles that we will see in training camp and preseason.
San Francisco has one of the best special teams coaches in the NFL, Brad Seely, and have dedicated a large portion of their 90-man roster to finding the best special teams aces they could get. The 49ers don’t want to see Jones or Randall Cobb running down the sideline against them anymore.
The 49ers are striving to be elite in all three phases and are determined to reach the Super Bowl for the second straight year.
