SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- For all of his football-playing life, San Francisco 49ers linebacker Eli Harold's view of opposing offenses has been decidedly right-leaning.
Now, in these organized team activities under a new coach in Kyle Shanahan and a revamped defensive scheme under coordinator Robert Saleh, Harold and many of his teammates are hitting the reset button.
Harold's clean slate comes with a substantial change.
"I have played on the right side of the ball my whole football career so my first time being on the left is this year," Harold said. "It feels so weird. It's all muscle memory. Your neck is looking a certain way, your arms, you have got to set the edge with a different arm. Just everything is flopped. It's weird. I'm still getting used to it but I've showed progress so you can only go up from here so that's a good thing."
Consider Harold's change of sides just one result of the clean slate that Shanahan and Co. have brought with them to San Francisco. In one way or another, it's a new beginning for every player on the 49ers. For some, the changes are more drastic than others but all of them find themselves doing whatever is asked of them as the 49ers hold what amounts to open competition at nearly every position on the roster.
For players like Harold, who by his own admission hasn't produced to the level that was expected when he was a third-round pick in 2015, the new start can be a blessing in that it puts everyone on an even playing field. It's also a challenge because there are clearly no sacred cows in this new regime. Anyone can be replaced at any time.
"I feel like that's big with not only myself but the whole team," Harold said. "Having a fresh, clean start never hurt anybody. I feel like everybody is on a pretty even slate right now and we have got a chance to compete. Every single day we are competing for a spot on the 53 and it's huge. I feel like we are all men and we're very strong willed. All of that plays a part in helping the next guy get that much better each and every day."
After having toe surgery in late January, Harold has missed part of the team's offseason program, including the voluntary minicamp before the draft. He's healthy again and back in the mix, playing primarily the strongside linebacker position in Saleh's 4-3 scheme.
That position isn't too different than outside linebacker in the 3-4 defense Harold played in his first two years, but it does ask him to play on the left side. While such a change sounds simple enough, there's a lot of re-training of the brain that must take place for him to feel comfortable. Things like footwork and visual cues are now different.
In Saleh's defense, the "Sam" linebacker and "Leo" defensive end are considered somewhat interchangeable in that those who play Sam generally can also play Leo. In fact, while the Sam is considered a linebacker, that position actually falls under the jurisdiction of defensive line coach Jeff Zgonina.
The competition at those spots figures to be difficult with veteran Ahmad Brooks the odds-on favorite to handle the Sam job. Still, at an OTA last week, it was Harold getting the repetitions with the first team while Brooks got something of a veteran rest.
"It was just a day to rotate Ahmad," Zgonina said. "He's a veteran. You can go back in my history, I was a veteran, I didn't want to take all these OTA reps. So Eli had missed some early spring work and I wanted to get him back up to speed. That's all it was."
Still, any chance Harold gets to earn a spot is one he knows he must use to his advantage. As part of his transition to a new position, Harold plans to study others who have excelled at his position in similar defensive schemes. Linebacker Brock Coyle, whom the Niners signed from the Seattle Seahawks this offseason, suggested Harold take a closer look at Bruce Irvin, who played the Sam for the Seahawks before moving on to the Oakland Raiders.
Two seasons into his NFL career, Harold has 50 tackles and three sacks while starting 14 games. As training camp arrives, he figures to have tough competition for a spot from Brooks, Dekoda Watson, Jimmie Gilbert and others.
"I feel like I really do have something to prove," Harold said. "My first two years really weren't what I wanted them to be but I feel like I took steps. My main thing is to just start fast. In my pro career, I've always started out slow, finding my way, feeling my way through a game or practices or training camp. My goal is to just hit everything 100 miles per hour, whether it's special teams, showing, doing look team. Just train my mind and body to be ready for the snap and then go from first game to last game, start fast and finish fast."
