While Colin Kaepernick is in Arizona learning the nuances of becoming an effective pocket passer, his new head coach said all his quarterback needs is to go back to when he was having fun.
NFL.com reported that new San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Tomsula conducted a somewhat vague introductory news conference on Thursday, in which he spoke in generalities about the direction of the organization.
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Tomsula said he wants Kaepernick and the rest of the team to return to a time when they were "having fun playing football" - a time before the rumblings of a Jim Harbaugh exit surfaced after the 2013 season or continued signs of regression on the part of the starting quarterback.
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"I think he can run, I think he can throw, I think he can change the pace of the game, change the speed of the game. I think he's very intelligent," Tomsula said of his quarterback, as reported by NFL.com. "He can do a lot of things with his feet, he can do a lot of things with his hands, he can do a lot of things with his arms, he can do a lot of things with his eyes, he can do a lot of things with his brain. And more so than a traditional quarterback, he does it with the lower body. Look at that, corral it and let's accentuate those things."
The 49ers in 2014 under Harbaugh tried to change the offense to make Kaepernick more of a prototypical quarterback who hangs in the pocket until the last possible moment looking for open wide receivers.
The result was a drop in passer rating of 86.4, Kaepernick's lowest in three years as the 49ers starter.
Tomsula did not go into detail about how he plans to get Kaepernick and the offense back to having fun on the field, but perhaps he's waiting until he hires an offensive coordinator to replace Greg Roman to see what direction the offense and Kaepernick will take.
Just as long as it's a fun direction.
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