[fullmetal]

Wow, didn't realize Thomas was making that hard of a decision when he signed with the Niners.  I'm hoping he's right and the excerpted quote from Fangio below is just there to assuage notions of favoritism.  The rest of the article has a few more salient points: he benefited from Fangio moving him from CB to S while at Stanford; he's got lots of tough receivers to cover in practice (Moss, Crabtree, Manningham); and he's competing with a draft pick for the fourth-string safety position.

Even though the team's defense is stacked, Thomas believes he had a better chance of sticking with San Francisco than the over four NFL teams that pursued him after the draft.

"It was definitely easier for me to transition here than probably going somewhere else where the rookies have to learn so much terminology," said Thomas, who is 5-foot-11, 182 pounds. "The schemes are similar to Stanford. But this also is 2.0 because Coach Fangio has changed up some things. So I still have a lot to learn."

Fangio said because the NFL is so different from college football, Thomas probably doesn't have that much of an advantage over any normal first-year player.

"But Mike's a good football player," Fangio said. "He had a lot to do with Stanford's success recently and hopefully he'll be able to transition that into the NFL."

Article here: http://www.mercurynews.com/stanford-card...y-harbaugh

[fullmetal]

Wow, didn't realize Thomas was making that hard of a decision when he signed with the Niners.  I'm hoping he's right and the excerpted quote from Fangio below is just there to assuage notions of favoritism.  The rest of the article has a few more salient points: he benefited from Fangio moving him from CB to S while at Stanford; he's got lots of tough receivers to cover in practice (Moss, Crabtree, Manningham); and he's competing with a draft pick for the fourth-string safety position.

Even though the team's defense is stacked, Thomas believes he had a better chance of sticking with San Francisco than the over four NFL teams that pursued him after the draft.

"It was definitely easier for me to transition here than probably going somewhere else where the rookies have to learn so much terminology," said Thomas, who is 5-foot-11, 182 pounds. "The schemes are similar to Stanford. But this also is 2.0 because Coach Fangio has changed up some things. So I still have a lot to learn."

Fangio said because the NFL is so different from college football, Thomas probably doesn't have that much of an advantage over any normal first-year player.

"But Mike's a good football player," Fangio said. "He had a lot to do with Stanford's success recently and hopefully he'll be able to transition that into the NFL."

Article here: http://www.mercurynews.com/stanford-card...y-harbaugh

[akiddoc]

Not 4th string. 4th safety.

[akiddoc]

Not 4th string. 4th safety.

[fullmetal]

Schematic substitutions aside, I meant the same, and I think they're equivalent in this case.  I wouldn't think those first three safeties are strong safeties though, so I think MT3 is only gunning for that fourth free safety spot.

[fullmetal]

Schematic substitutions aside, I meant the same, and I think they're equivalent in this case.  I wouldn't think those first three safeties are strong safeties though, so I think MT3 is only gunning for that fourth free safety spot.