NFC West Notes: 49ers, Cardinals, Seahawks

49ers

49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo praised second-year WR Trent Taylor‘s explosiveness and is able to “feel space” differently than other players. 

“Yeah, definitely,” Garoppolo said, via Jennifer Lee Chen of NBC Sports. “Trent’s so savvy. It’s awesome having a guy like that in the slot. He feels space differently than most guys.” 

Regarding Taylor’s back injury last season, 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan said the receiver has had “no setbacks” and could tell his route running improved. 

“It was so hard for Trent last year just because he was battling that back thing all of last offseason, so he missed a whole offseason of working out, which is a huge deal,” Shanahan said. “Trent spent his whole time away healthy. He had no setbacks with his back, so we could see the first day he got back here when he ran routes that he was feeling better.”

Cardinals

Cardinals RB David Johnson is still going to play a large role as potentially the focal point of Arizona’s offense in 2019. However, HC Kliff Kingsbury says second-year RB Chase Edmonds is more than capable of giving Johnson a breather.

“He’s a really good player. I’ve been surprised at his ability as a pass catcher,” Kingsbury said via AZCentral.com’s Katherine Fitzgerald. “I think watching him, you know, I knew what David could do out of the backfield, but watching him, that’s a strong point of his game as well. So he’ll have a really nice role in the offense.”

Seahawks

Tyler Lockett is now in position to the Seahawks’ No. 1 receiver after Doug Baldwin retired from the NFL. However, HC Pete Carroll admitted that it’s going to be tough to remove Lockett as their punt returner, given how great he is at.

“We’re always thinking that way,” Carroll said. “We’ve been thinking that way for a few years. We look for opportunities and stuff like that and see if we can maximize his play however we do that. He’s such a great catcher and a great return guy it’s hard to put somebody else in his spot. But, we continue to always lean that way. We’d rather have him pick and choose when we do it, particularly on the kickoffs. He’s just such a great punt returner, it’s hard to take him out of there.”

Lockett says he wants to do as much as he can.

“Yeah, I want to do everything, everything that I could possibly do, whatever that is,” Lockett said.

Carroll specifically mentioned J.D. McKissic as the obvious candidate to fill in for Lockett as their main returner. 

“Well, we’ve got some guys,” Carroll said. “J.D. McKissic has always been one of the guys we like putting back there. He can catch punts and kickoffs. That’s the first guy that we think of so that would be the guy that we’d go to (instead of Lockett). Some of the young guys look good too.”