3-0 49ers not showing all their cards in the pre season By David Zizmor September 2, 2009     SANTA CLARA--Even after winning three games in a row in the pre season teams don't necessary show all their colors they’re not going to open up their play books on offense or on defense. Anyone who is watching these 49ers games in the pre season knows that they have not been blitzing a lot. You have to imagine that given a lack of a pass rush they've got to be blitzing. So the fact that they’re not blitzing means that their holding their blitz packages back. The Niners don't want teams to get footage of that on film so they can study it and pick up the Niners tendencies in blitzing. So for instance that's not their defensive performance which is not totally indicative of how they would be playing during the regular season. Now of course the 49ers defense has not been that bad in pre season but let's remember their not blitzing so that's one factor that's just not all involved at this point in the pre season. When you watch these pre season games their just not going to open up the play book all that much. In the third pre season game as when the starters get most of the work and when the starter group plays a whole half of football a few guys will play into the third quarter. That is when they want to get everyone in and get everyone their work and in game four of the pre season where the 49ers finish off with the Chargers in San Diego on Friday night they will pretty much give the starters one series at the beginning of the game to get their feet wet and then they let the backups play. The whole idea is not to get any of their main guys hurt on Friday night they don't want any injuries that's the last thing you want on the eve of opening day. So the Niners will mostly put in the back ups and put in the guys who are mostly fighting for position on the team who are fighting for roster spots that they'll be making last second decisions on. Those are the guys you’re going to see in that last pre season game. It's going to be the second and third stringers guys who aren't going to get a lot of work during the regular season but need to get some work now and maybe how they perform in this last pre season game should tell you where they should be on the depth chart. The 49ers shouldn't be making a whole lot of roster decisions and most of their roster spots were locked up when they went into training camp. There is going to be a few choices here and there that is going to be tough for head coach Mike Singletary but for the most part everything is sealed up there are not too many guys who are on the cutting block. So this last pre season game in San Diego is a chance for the backups to stretch their legs and get some work in and jockey for position a little bit and that's going to be about it and it's just a matter of not getting anyone hurt and you want to come out of the pre season as healthy as possible. The third pre season game against Dallas was a good chance for the 49ers to go up against a good team and the Cowboys are a good solid competitive team. They may not be the favorites in the NFC East but they're one of the teams that people are going to keep an eye out for. The Cowboys are going to be fighting with the Giants and the Eagles for that NFC East crown and will certainly be in the hunt for a wild card spot. So the Niners wanted to come in that last game and show they can hang with a team like the Cowboys and play them tough. They stayed in the game when both sets of starters were out there on the field. The Niners did a good job. They could have done better but the 49ers are holding a guy like Frank Gore back, quarterback Shawn Hill isn't playing that much, the wide receiving core is not playing all their top guys all the way through. The Niners did manage to look good against a good Dallas team and they also managed not kick any footballs off the scoreboard. You figure if Dallas owner Jerry Jones wants to invest a couple of billions of dollars in a stadium maybe the 49ers can screw him up a little bit by knocking the light bulbs out of the scoreboard. David Zizmor covers the 49ers each week for Sportstalk Radio

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