A first-round pick in the 2007 NFL Draft out of Central Michigan, tackle Joe Staley will share his experiences as a 49ers rookie, on and off the field. Check out his latest installment.
I'm really interested in getting involved with charity work out here so Adam Snyder invited me out of the blue to this dinner for the 49ers Academy on Friday night. They were honoring Bryant Young who has made a lot of contributions to the Academy, and then it was also a fundraiser. There was a silent and live auction. I think I won something, but they haven't contacted me yet so maybe I didn't, but I thought I put down the highest big in the silent auction for this trip to Tahoe. I felt a little out of place at the dinner because I was the only rookie and there were veterans like Trent Dilfer, Jeff Ulbrich and Derek Smith, but I do want to start becoming more involved in the community so it was good to get a crash course.
We had the walk-thru on Saturday afternoon and then I headed over to the team hotel down by the stadium. David Baas, Tony Wragge and myself piled into Snyder's truck and we made a quick stop at In-n-Out Burger, which is right down the street. Once I get to the hotel, I always end up on the computer watching really stupid but funny videos on You Tube. I probably wasted about two hours going through that routine. Basically I just put a search for funny and then sort most viewed and the most popular ones come up. There were some hilarious ones on there, so I got some laughs. Right before I went to bed I watched some more film. I just like to have football be the last thing on my mind and then usually when I wake up it's all in my head and I'm ready to go.
Sunday sucked. I don't really like talking about it. I really believe that momentum is a huge key in the game of football, and we just never got that. It is our job to protect the quarterback and we didn't do that either. It was a huge blow to lose Alex with the shoulder injury. That's really on us.
Monday we came in and it was just a bad day. We were all in a bad mood. Everybody was just really disappointed. It wasn't even like we needed to be chewed out to realize we didn't play well. It was one of those things where you wanted to watch the film in order to identify what went wrong out there, but at the same time it was really painful to watch.
It's just a situation where not all 11 guys are doing their responsibilities. We are having breakdowns at one spot on one play, and another on another play. The plays where we have negative plays are usually 10 guys doing the right thing and one guy messing up on his assignment, but that's all that it takes. It takes one guy to not do what he's taught in his execution of the game plan to have a breakdown. We need to play collectively as a whole and get all 11 guys on the same page in order to fix what's been wrong.
After watching the tape, we had individual meetings with Warhop afterwards, and it was just a down day.
On Tuesday, Donald Strickland and I went to Half Moon Bay for this sponsorship golf outing. That was the best golf course I've ever golfed at in my life. I was in a five-some and we played scramble style. I had new Nike clubs that I had just gotten a few weeks before so I was really excited to try them out. I did pretty well with them. My irons were just okay, but my drivers were really good. It was the first time I've been able to get out on the golf course since getting out here, and I really enjoyed being out on the course.
On the way there, there were probably about 50 pumpkin patches. I don't know that I've ever seen so many before! I didn't stop to pick up one, but I will do that because I'm a big believer in celebrating holidays.
As I said last week, I went out and bought Halo 3. I thought Snyder and I were going to play last week, but I never actually got around to hooking up my Xbox. I finally got that set up, and then I got online and played just to try it out and I got absolutely smoked. I was terrible. A bunch of the guys play online against each other all the time, so I'm going to have to improve so that I can partake in that competition.
Also, my new bed was delivered and I'm looking forward to my sleep improving! It's an amazing bed, especially compared to my old one.
I did watch The Office last Thursday. It was great, loved it, and I can't wait for the next episode.
I arrived at the facility on Wednesday and heard that Patrick Estes had been re-signed so I went in search of him and it's great to have him back. He's a good guy.
We've put that Seattle game behind us and it's all about Baltimore. They have some good players over there. Ray Lewis is one of the best LBs in the league. They run a 3-4, and they have a good front three, and a lot of active guys, guys who like to play football. They are aggressive, downhill, and they are going to smash you in the mouth. We have to have that attitude going in and it's very important in practice that our offensive line gets that attitude and swagger that we are going to hit you right back in the mouth. We are not going to back down and we are going to make it a 60 minute game.
It's very frustrating because after four games we expect to have over 400 yards for Frank and we put that on the offensive line. We haven't done our job and we have to do that and we also have to give Alex or Trent time in the pocket. That's what we have to focus on this week, and it started Wednesday in practice.
Trent is a great leader. That's the greatest thing about him – he really commands respect in the huddle. He's a very intelligent player and he knows exactly what is going on. I think he'll put us in a great position to make plays and be successful.
