The 49ers turned over their roster this offseason.
They parted ways with eight starters, who have a combined 54 years of NFL experience. They added 17 rookies to the roster and have 38 players on their 90-player roster who have two or fewer seasons of experience.
This 49ers team, unlike recent 49ers teams, is young and inexperienced.
49ers coach Kyle Shanahan urged his team leaders to participate in the voluntary offseason workouts to show the way.
“We’ve had so many players who have owned those [starting] spots for a while, and so some rookies come in and they just sit back and watch those guys. They learn that standard,” Shanahan said, via Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle. “But now I don’t feel we have as many of those guys as we’ve had in the past. We’ve got to re-show that standard to all the rookies that came in last year. All the rookies that we’re adding this year. We have guys that know how to work the right way, and football means everything to them. But half of our team hasn’t seen that.”
49ers General Manager John Lynch said last week that nearly every player was in attendance for Phase 1, which is two weeks of strength and conditioning. The attendees have included edge rusher Nick Bosa and left tackle Trent Williams.
Both typically aren’t at the team facility for the start of the offseason program, with Bosa in Florida with his brother, Joey, and Williams at home in Texas. But Bosa and Williams are doing as Shanahan asked and setting the standard.
“We have too many guys that don’t know what we’ve been through the last five, eight years,” Shanahan said. “And we’ve got to show them that in Phase 1. How we work and go about things. And really establish that hard work.”
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