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Joe Staley is firmly enjoying his retirement. The longtime 49ers left tackle was inducted into the Senior Bowl Hall of Fame on Wednesday, and had an on-camera interview for the first time in a long time. Staley, who went the Joe Thomas route and immediately shed a human child’s worth of weight once he retired, talked to NFL Network about the 49ers’ quarterback competition.
He recalled feeling entrenched as the 49ers’ starting left tackle but taking it as a challenge whenever a rookie was brought in, and saw how Jimmy Garoppolo could take a similar approach.
“Jimmy, since day one, he’s been a winner, when he’s been with the San Francisco 49ers,” Staley said. “He hasn’t been available in a lot of games and I think that’s what the Niners did with drafting Trey Lance. It’s little bit of an insurance policy, but Jimmy is going to get every opportunity to win that starting job for training camp, but I think it’s good for him because honestly as a player myself, I felt entrenched as a left tackle. But when I would get guys that came in as rookies, trying to vie for my job, it definitely pushed you a little bit more in training camp.
“Competition just breeds more success on the football field if you frame it the right way and I know Jimmy will, but Trey’s a very exciting player as well. His skill set and what he’s going to be able to do in Kyle’s offense, it’s going to be exciting to see this whole season, it’s going to be really interesting to see how it plays out.”
We’re just about a month away from training camp, when we’ll get our first real look at both quarterbacks in a realistic version of Kyle Shanahan’s offense. We got the briefest of glimpses during organized team activities, but the 49ers spent a great deal of that time working with Trey Lance on fine-tuning his mechanics. Within two months, the quarterback competition will be in full swing.