by David Zizmor

This is the most unusual off season for any team the San Francisco 49ers haven’t had to deal with any significant legal issues of late. Ray McDonald is gone he was a member of the Chicago Bears for a short time. The 49ers have had to deal with a string of unexpected retirements, Justin Smith was the only one that was kind of expected.

Patrick Willis, Chris Borland, and Anthony Davis, your talking about three starters there who all retired these are guys at least as far as the NFL is concerned that were not at the end of their careers. Borland was just entering his second season, Willis was going to enter his tenth and Davis was entering his fifth season. Davis was a young guy he was only like 25.

Davis entered the league pretty young in the first place these were all guys who were starters, Willis is a guy who could be in the Hall of Fame someday. Borland was a borderline rookie of the year and Davis made one Pro Bowl were talking about some real high quality starters who all retired without any foreknowledge of the media or the 49ers.

The 49ers didn’t anticipate it, the media didn’t anticipate it either they certainly had no clue that these retirements were coming. So to be able to fill those holes on short notice is really going to bring a lot competition in the 49ers camp this coming July. Davis’ position at right tackle that’s going to be the biggest one because his retirement was well after the draft.

Oakland Raiders update: You look at the Raiders and the Niners and two years ago the Niners were coming off a Super Bowl loss and it looked like they were going to be competitive for a long time. The Raiders were just awful they had no talent on their roster. They were rebuilding about the fifth year in the row and that’s what it seems like.

The Raiders were going nowhere and now the Niners seems to be the team that’s stuck in neutral and nobody seems to know what their doing. The Raiders well I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the Raiders are going to be a playoff team. You look at that team and they have a lot to do. The Raiders have some sort of direction.

They seemed to have an upward trend, they picked quarterback Derek Carr last season in the draft and he got into the starting line up a few games into the season and from the time he started he looked like he was gong to be a good player. Carr seemed to improve over the course of the season, he needed some help the Raiders didn’t have much of a running game.

Their receiving core needed some improvement, the Raiders seemed to address that in the draft and their getting better Carr looks like a long term keeper. It’s not known if he’s going to be a Pro Bowler but he definitely looks like he could be a strong starting quarterback in the NFL. That’s a big deal that’s something that the Raiders haven’t had in a long time.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below