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Need to bring in speed

At some point over the weekend, the 49ers will pick a running back to help Frank Gore extend his career and enable the offense to play up to what coach Mike Singletary envisions for 2009 and beyond.

That is, an offense that can run the ball when it wants to, run the ball when it has to and, most important, run the ball when the defense knows it has to, as well.

All of that would be a huge improvement from last year, when the 49ers ranked 27th in rushing offense - even with Gore accounting for 1,036 yards.

"I want to know I have the ability to know that I can run the ball," Singletary said a day after the 2008 season ended. "I want to have the ability to know that I can impose my will on the defense. I want to know that in the fourth quarter, I can run the football. When they put eight people in the box, I can still run the football, if I want to."

In order to do that, the 49ers need more than Gore, stalwart and dependable as he is. Running backs have shorter shelf lives in the NFL than other players, and successful teams usually have more than one runner on whom they can rely.

Singletary said he hoped the 49ers become a team that can "take the game over and run the football. To me, those are the teams that are going to be successful year in and year out and not go out of style. You have to be able to do that. It's as simple to me as blocking and tackling."

With those marching orders in place, whom might the 49ers consider after the first round, when the three top running backs - Knowshon Moreno, Beanie Wells and Donald Brown - are expected to be taken?

North Carolina State's Andre Brown, Texas A&M's Mike Goodson and Purdue's Kory Sheets visited the team. The 49ers might have an interest in Liberty's Rashad Jennings as well, seeing as how he's a 232-pound banger with 4.55 speed for the 40-yard dash.

At the moment, the only running backs on the roster after Gore are versatile Michael Robinson and unproven Thomas Clayton. The 49ers did not bring back DeShaun Foster after his one season with the team. Help is clearly needed. Maybe some of it will come from Clayton, a muscular 222-pounder now in his third year.

"I have an outstanding relationship with Frank, and I definitely attribute the success I had in the last two preseasons to him," Clayton said on the 49ers' official Web site. "I'm real anxious to get back on the field for my third year and put to work all I've learned. With the work I'm putting in this offseason, I should definitely have a rewarding season."

It's highly unlikely the 49ers would use their first pick on a back, even one at the top of his position like Georgia's Moreno. It's simply not regarded as a good value pick at that point in the draft.

Good running backs can be found later, best exemplified by former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, who was forever finding gems in the sixth and seventh rounds.

The two best running backs the 49ers had in the last 25 years, Roger Craig (1983) and Ricky Watters (1991), were taken in the second round.

It's possible the third-best back in the 2009 draft, UConn's Brown, still might be available when the 49ers pick in the second round, 43rd overall. Not likely, though.

The only thing that is likely is that the 49ers will pick a running back at some point this weekend.

LINK >> NFL DRAFT / Need to bring in speed

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