Are you ready for some football?

Well, ready or not — it’s here.

The San Francisco 49ers threw open the doors to their practice facility this week and in walked about 93 physical specimens each of whom is intent on claiming one of the 53 available jobs come September when things get serious.

If your name is Purdy, McCaffrey, Williams, Kittle, Bosa, Warner or Lenoir, you needn’t look over your shoulder. Nobody’s coming to get those guys. If, however, you’re gifted a helmet that sports a piece of tape with your name written on it in pencil, you’re probably hiding your cell phone for fear of it ringing.

A player many years ago told me that every single person in a pro training camp has been All-Pro since the third grade. That the best guy you ever lined up in front of isn’t nearly as good as the guy you need to beat here to get a job.

I spent a lot of time at the knee of an Oakland Raider hero named George Blanda. Whenever I’d ask him about some nuance in the game of football he’d say, “Football is what it’s always been: Runnin’ and passin’ and blockin’ and tacklin’.” George was something of a traditionalist who didn’t think it was at all necessary to make the game any more complicated than it already was.

Blanda was such a traditionalist that he wore the same shoulder pads when he retired from the Raiders in 1976 as he did at the University of Kentucky between 1945 and 1948. His first contract with the Chicago Bears, was for $6,000 a year. But, he’s quick to add, “I got a $600 signing bonus.”

Lots has changed since then. Training camp was where you went to get in shape after that offseason job of driving a beer truck. Today’s players now own the beer distributorship. Their offseason job is diving into the bottomless pit of money that they earn — like Scrooge McDuck.

Unlike Scrooge McDuck, they’re expected to already be in peak shape before they strike the first tackling dummy.

The game has changed, the coaching has changed, and the players have changed. When I started covering preseason football practices they were laissez-faire events wherein if I need any sort of information I could knock on the coach’s door and be invited in. If it was a player I needed to know something about, I could call him and say, “Let’s go have a drink.”

The PR guy was an enforcer. He could go to the coach and say, “I need you to go downstairs and talk to this reporter,” and the coach would dutifully comply. Now the PR guy’s No. 1 priority is keeping the press at bay.

You could not only saunter out to watch practice, you could talk to guys on the sideline. Now the media is allowed to see up close who can touch their toes the best and whose quads are the most flexible. Once anything that even resembles a football activity commences, the media is shuttled off to a bunker to gossip amongst itself about what might really be going on.

This allows me to reveal one of a journalist’s most precious secrets. I’ve been to roughly 500,000 football practices (give or take…) and I have yet to learn a single secret that I might bring to the broadcast booth with me and that would make me one iota smarter than had I not skipped off to In-N-Out for a quick burger.

Coaches way overestimate the football savvy of the enemy — the press.

The sophistication of today’s game has also changed those who are equipped to play it. No longer can an athlete whose highest intellectual feat might be counting by stamping his foot, make it in today’s complex game.

You need only talk to Brock Purdy, Fred Warner, Trent Williams, or Christian McCaffrey (to name only a few) to see that mental acuity is as important as physical acuity in today’s NFL.

It wasn’t always so. These same 49ers had a running back named Gary Lewis several years back. He was a terrific guy, with a ready smile and a giant heart. The quarterback would call the play in the huddle then turn to his running back and say, “Gary, you’re getting the ball. Just follow No. 63 into the hole.”

Anyone who was around the Raiders in the late 70’s would remember Charles Philyaw. He was a 6-foot, 9-inch tall, 275-pound defensive tackle from Texas Southern. Again, a lovely guy, who came up just a tad short in the GPA department.

“What did you take in college, Charles?” To which he got very defensive. “Nothin’ man, just a couple of jerseys and a pair of shoes.”

Philyaw would have to choose a different profession were he to come out of college today.

So here’s what you’ve got going on in Santa Clara:

93 guys, 53 jobs. All of them think they belong here.
A team that will be playing one of the softest schedules in the NFL. Ergo…more pressure.
A running back, wide receiver, and offensive lineman who spent more time in a cast than on the field last year.
An incomplete defense looking to fill the holes with a flock of new faces who have no idea what awaits them.
A wide receiver room with plenty of empty chairs.
A team with high caliber leadership on and off the field. (This is a very good thing).
A team capable of refloating what appeared to be a sinking ship.

The story will play out in games, not in preseason practices. So, if you’re thinking of spending the day watching football practice, I urge you to watch something more inspiring.

Like lube jobs, or haircuts.

Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native.  Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.

Originally Published: July 24, 2025 at 5:18 PM PDT