As we've been discussing Smith and his success (or lack thereof) in the 49ers offense, many, myself included, have advocated moving toward a more open "spread" attack, utilizing plays mostly out of the shotgun.  I've been advocating this because it has certainly seemed like Smith was more comfortable in this formation, and the 9ers offense as a whole is more successful.

During this conversation, some people have been wondering what the "spread", "shotgun", "desperation" or whatever you want to call it offense actually entails.  To me, it means running plays primarily (>50%, more like 60-75%) from the shotgun, with either 3+WR,  2 WR 2 TE, or 2WR 1TE 2RB (that's 2 RB,  not 1 RB, 1 FB).  The latter formations allow for players to begin on the line and shift  out to WR spots, or vice versa.  What it DOES NOT mean is throwing on every down, completely abandoning the run.

I wanted to take a look at the Niners' O since Smith has been starting, and see how successful they've been when they're in the "spread", so I looked at every drive, and compiled all of the drives where >50% of the snaps  were taken from the shotgun.  I did this becasue I wanted to differentiate between when the offensive philosophy was to execute from the spread, as opposed to being forced to use more WR / the shotgun because of down and distance on isolated occasions.  As a result, several of these drives include plays made from under center, and with non-spread personnel, but the overall drive conformed to the philosophy.  The results may surprise you:

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or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Edgar Rentaria

So yesterday was my first game ever at the phone, and you know what? it turned out pretty well.   My dad and I left Folsom around 230 and got into SF a little after 4.  We went to Gordon Biersch for a quick bite before heading to the stadium, which was pretty good, good beer, not too expensive.  We got an unexpected show when I noticed a guy on the train platform accross the street who was too drunk to stand up straight.  He was trying to start a fight, and the other people on the platform were doing a pretty good job of ignoring him while his friend held him back.  After a while, his friend got him to sit down, but then he lost his grip and the guy got up off the bench and promptly fell onto the train tracks.

We got to the park when the bums were taking BP.  I don't know if you guys are aware, but they have this guy "Manny" something, and he can hit the ball pretty far.

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AKA Damn the 12 character customization limit.

I want to get a custom jersey with a player's nickname, unfortunately my first choice (Baron Pickoff Von Ironglove) is way too long.  A couple of good ones are 13 characters as well, meaning I have to cut off a space somewhere.

Here are a few I've been thinking of:

KUNGFU PANDA - 48

PANDAEXPRESS - 48

ALBATROSS - 75

FRANCHISE - 55

SEABISCUT - 55

BIG MONEY - 1

LITTLE MONEY - 48

Any of those stand out as better than the others?  Any other ideas? Keep in mind, there's a 12 character limit, including spaces.

to be announced tomorrow.

Who do you think got traded?  Winn? Aurilia? Winn? Winn?  I hope it was Winn.  What teams in contention need an OF or utility IF?  Will we get someone at least at the semi-prospect level like Denker?  Are our chains being pulled and it's going to be Ochoa going down so McClain can get a cup of coffee?  What SJ Giant will be used to fill the roster hole?

Open rampant speculation.

This is according to Damon Bruce on sportsphone tonight.

This is my first year of following baseball seriously, and I have a question for those of you who've been doing it longer.

About what level of competition to players face in college? When looking at a college player's numbers, what's a good comp? low A? high A? AA?