Kendall Hunter News

The San Francisco 49ers ' first season under head coach Jim Harbaugh was a brilliant success.

In 2011, the San Francisco 49ers finished the season with the eighth-best running game in the league.

The first time Brandon Jacobs won a Super Bowl, he ballooned to 285 pounds and started losing his trademark leg strength for the New York Giants.

The word is "competition" and the modus operandi is bringing in a bunch of players and letting them settle it during training camp.

The San Francisco 49ers ran away with the NFC West in 2011, becoming the first NFL team to clinch its division before finishing a distant five games ahead of the second-place Arizona Cardinals.

While Gore is determined to do his part to duplicate San Francisco's special comeback season of 2011, he has other motivation, too: The defending NFC West champions already have a busy backfield, and Gore will get a daily push from backup Kendall Hunter, newly signed Brandon Jacobs and rookie second-round pick LaMichael James.

The question begs to be asked: What's a nice running back like Jewel Hampton doing in a place like San Francisco? Hampton, after all, was a well-regarded undrafted free agent whose post-draft suitors included the Colts, Buccaneers and Eagles.

Dec 24, 2011; Seattle, WA, USA; Seattle Seahawks defensive end Red Bryant wraps up San Francisco 49ers running back Kendall Hunter during the 2nd half at CenturyLink Field.

SANTA CLARA – When Brandon Jacobs dreams of the upcoming season, he envisions shoulder pads crunching, helmets cracking and defensive linemen giving ground along the line of scrimmage.

Running back Frank Gore is a firm believer in the status quo. Despite Gore's fall off in production in the second half of last season, he doesn't think the rotation he had with Kendall Hunter should change.

The San Francisco 49ers have quite the situation on offense. They had a great rushing attack last season with RB Frank Gore and RB Kendall Hunter leading the way.

Before he said Michael Crabtree had the best hands on a wide receiver that he's ever seen , he compared second-round pick LaMichael James to Ray Rice, the Ravens' two-time Pro Bowl running back.

As I stated in a previous article , the San Francisco 49ers may run into potential problems in the backfield.

Continuing with our recap of the 49ers ' 2011 season, we reach the Week 4 match-up between San Francisco and Philadelphia.

The knee-jerk habitual thinking is that Alex Smith cannot throw a ball far downfield.

NFL Network continued its unveiling of "The Top 100: Players of 2012" on Wednesday night, rolling out Nos.

In the 2011 and 2012 NFL drafts under the new regime led by Jim Harbaugh and Trent Baalke, the San Francisco 49ers revealed themselves to be methodical and successful.

The classmates of the incoming NFL draftees probably think their peers are headed for easy street.

Even the most casual observer of the NFL has to know that the San Francisco 49ers , those noted upstarts of 2011, seem to have loaded up for bear in 2012.

Examining who faces the most challenging season for the San Francisco 49ers and why.