A Confident QB, An Unusual Workout Routine, and the Wonders of YouTube

On a day when Brett Favre drew most of the NFL headlines by simply choosing to do nothing, the arrival of the relatively nondescript quarterbacks of the San Francisco 49ers to the team's facility in Santa Clara was greeted with little fanfare.

Yet even in their introductory dealings with the media both Shaun Hill and Alex Smith made indelible impressions that spoke volumes.

Hill, 7-3 in his ten starts for the Niners the past two seasons came in tanned, smiling, and exuding all the confidence and bravado one would associate with a starting NFL quarterback.

He spoke of how much more comfortable he was with new offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye's playbook than he was with Mike Martz's at this same time last year.

He expressed that he specifically liked the fact that he'll have the option to check out of bad plays at the line of scrimmage to audible into whatever suits his fancy, and how having that freedom and responsibility will benefit his style.

Hill also said that he would prefer for head coach Mike Singletary to name the starting quarterback as soon as possible so that he could get the majority of the reps and build a report with the receivers.

His tone and body language, however, made it clear that not only does he see the competition as a trivial annoyance to be easily dealt with, but also that he is not the kind of guy who puts much stock in practice or preseason games and that he would very much prefer to get the real season underway as soon as possible.

Perhaps it could be argued that Hill acted far more arrogantly than someone with his modest accomplishments ought to, especially when engaged in a quarterback controversy with a former No. 1 overall draft pick, but Hill, with his head up, his voice clear and his glare penetrating, looked like The Man out here.

The contrast with Smith was in a word, startling.

Smith engaged the media with his head down and his voice quiet.

He made little eye contact with those who asked him questions and gave few definitive statements.

He said that his throwing shoulder, which has undergone operations the past two seasons, is feeling better than it has in a long time, but readily admitted that doubts still creep into his mind about it's durability from time to time.

Smith stated that as far as he knew the competition between him and Hill was even but at no time did he express or even suggest that he believed he would win the job.

He was hopeful, but not confident, waiting to see what training camp and the preseason games would bring.

If you took the average Joe off the street unfamiliar with the 49ers, asked him to observe the two interview sessions and then asked him who was the former No. 1 pick and who was undrafted journeyman, there isn't a chance he would guess that Smith was the one marked for stardom while Hill is the NFL vagabond looking for a permanent home.

Smith just wants to make a good impression in this training camp and see what happens.

Hill is already looking past the so-called "competition" and is eager for the games that matter.

One guy looks and sounds like a leader of men, the other like someone hoping to hold a clipboard and draw an easy, painless paycheck the next few years.

I would be shocked if, barring injury, that Shaun Hill isn't the starting quarterback of the 49ers in Arizona for their regular season opener against the Cardinals on Sept. 13.

Far removed from the quarterback drama was rookie linebacker Scott McKillop, a fifth-round pick out of Pittsburgh, who despite his polite "Yes sir, no sir" answers and cheery demeanor ruined at least a dozen scribes' afternoons when he revealed that he was too young to have ever seen Singletary's playing days as a star linebacker for the Chicago Bears.

"I had to check him out on Youtube," McKillop sheepishly confessed, while adding that until he visited Santa Clara for the first time in May for OTAs, he hadn't even heard of "The Super Bowl Shuffle" that Singletary and the rest of his '85 teammates recorded and boogied to in the aftermath of their dominant 18-1 season.

I feel so old.

Speaking of the '85 Bears, Singletary's Hall of Fame teammate, running back Walter Payton was known for his grueling off-season workouts running up steep hills in his native Mississippi.

Curtis Taylor, a seventh-round pick out of LSU hoping to catch on as a backup safety, may be a generation removed from the legendary Payton, but he too sees the benefit of using Mother Nature as a training partner rather than running on a treadmill in some antiseptic gym.   

"I've been training by running the levees back home," Taylor said, meaning Louisiana.

When a reporter asked him if he was running over the levees or around them, an incredulous Taylor replied, "It wouldn't do me no good to run around them."

For most of us media types, even running around them would be a marked improvement over our current (non-existent) conditioning programs.