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		Niners open season with Arizona By David Zizmor September 7, 2007

	What has been seen in pre season is not definitive of what is going to be the real thing with the San Francisco 49ers. It is always hard to tell because you do not see teams open up their entire playbook during the pre season and even more importantly, you don't see the regular teams during most pre seasons. We see the first team guys for maybe a series or two or the most you might see them for a quarter or a quarter and half of football. Therefore, you cannot judge the entire team by that, and the 49ers are just getting their legs under them and their figuring out all these new plays and they're not able to do all their plays because the coaching staff doesn't want to give anything away. The Niners have looked good and bad, and whatever we see in pre season is not a true indicator of what this team can do on the field. Even once, we get to the regular season it might take a few games to really get flowing because the Niners are installing a new defense they are going from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense. Its a big change and they've had a lot of personnel changes this off season you will see a lot of new faces on this team and for all that to jell together might take a few games before things really start to click. So it's going to hard to tell what the season is really going to become and the 49ers should start getting a real idea this coming Monday night against the Cardinals that's a first test for them that's when were really going to see how much the offense progresses and how much Alex Smith has come along. We haven't even seen Frank Gore all during the pre season that's a big factor that's nobody's really discussed. And some people have said the Niners didn't look great during their pre season games oh yeah Frank Gore the Niners most important offensive player wasn't even the ball game in any of the plays and he broke his hand early in camp he fully recovered but we haven't seen him. When defenses do not have to worry about him well that changes everything. So when we come out on Monday and see that Niners team with Gore in the back field and all the new guys on the defensive side of the ball some of those new wide receivers its going to be a whole new ball game. We are going to finally see a lot of what people are expecting this is a good 49ers team and you will start seeing that this Monday. Alex Smith has to get it going in the opener: In pre season, Smith did not want to have to go in and have such a rough game like the one he had against the Bears a couple of weeks ago. Without Gore in the backfield it really presents a really different opponent for the defense, The Bears defense and the Chargers defense in pre-season and for that matter in regular season are two of the best defenses in all of football and granted their not playing their full compliment of players but still they're far away from the top five defenses if not even higher if not the top three defenses in the NFL. When all they have to do is to worry about Smith and stopping the passing game. I don't know about any team that would do well pre season or regular season and that was the situation that Smith was in. The Bears or the Chargers didn't have to worry about Frank Gore so all they had to do is get in Smith's face and that was it. If this was the regular season Gore would be back there and the game plan would be a lot different and Smith might have a little more to work with. You cannot say that those two teams that the Niners faced are indicative of the way the Niners are going to play but when your missing players pre season is a completely different match up. The thing is Smith is 23 and he would be top quarterback prospect in all of college football. Cole Brennan out in Hawaii University he's 23 he's going to be a top draft pick this year and he'll be older than Alex Smith when he comes into the league. Smith is already entering his third season, he's been in this league for a couple of years so far he improved last year over his first year the team around him has improved. Smith over all improve and step back and look at the big picture when this season finishes. This is a guy whose very smart is a guy who keeps loading the offense, a guy whose dedicated to the T. Smith is a guy whose team mates rally around which we saw late last season when the 49ers finally put things together in those Seattle and Denver games. The Niners won both of those games and especially in the Seattle game they won that game especially because of Smith and that's the guy the Niners were looking for when they drafted him. Smith has got potential but you have to remember he's really, really young he's 23 and there's not a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL that are 23. Even some of the rookies quarterbacks aren't that young. Smith's learning curve is speed and usually it's a tough job but as the players around him improve and they have. I think he's going to show improvement as well and I think we have already have seen flashes of his leadership quality that's only going to shine even more as he gets older and more and more confident. So granted Smith didn't have the best looking pre season this year but Joe Montana and Steve Young didn't look good in pre season either. For Montana it took him three years before he was the full time starter with the Niners he has a little ways to go before he took over to Steve DeBerg. So lets not rush to judgment regarding Smith just yet this is a kid that has shown some really good skills. He has tremendous potential and he's right on the cusp of starting to fulfill it. So this is a year where your going to see some good things out of Smith regardless of his pre season. David Zizmor covers 49ers football and does 49ers previews each week. Hear David on the Mighty 1690 KFSG Sacramento on Sportstalk.