2012-GameRelease-Divisional

Former Duck LaMichael James is living in limbo
By Rob Moseley, Oregon Register-Guard
Player Feature Story
As Sunday’s game ended at Candlestick Park, players from the San Francisco 49ers and St. Louis Rams
wandered onto the field, some clearly lost in a foggy limbo.
The NFC West rivals had just played to the NFL’s first tie in several years, the concept of which escaped
some of the participants. Was the game really over? Weren’t the teams supposed to keep playing? Or
were they forced to accept that frustrating middle ground: not losers, but not victors, either?
For the 46 players in uniform on each side, it was a glimpse at what professional life has been like for
LaMichael James, Oregon’s all-time leading rusher who passed up his senior year with the Ducks and
was a second-round draft pick of the 49ers. Success tinged with frustration, not a defeat but certainly not
complete victory.
Through nine games this season, James has yet to so much as suit up for San Francisco. No team in the
league has used its rookies less than the 49ers, who are led by former Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh;
even their first-round pick awaits his first snap.
So James isn’t alone. Which is small consolation.
“I just want to play,” he said last week, during a break between the team’s walk-through and a practice at
its Santa Clara, Calif., facilities. “I’d play for free at this point.”
And that’s saying something, because James signed a four-year, $3.3 million contract with the 49ers.
These days, he earns that by practicing against San Francisco’s defense, which allows the fewest points
in the NFL, 14.1 per game.
He’s essentially a redshirt again, just as he was for Oregon in 2008, when he arrived on campus from
Texarkana, Texas. Stuck in limbo, a contributor to the team but not nearly to the extent he’d like.
A ‘scout-team superstar’
James had some chances in the preseason. He got 13 carries, for 63 yards, caught a couple of passes
and was used as the 49ers’ primary return man.
But there were also a couple of fumbles, and an ankle injury. And then, when the regular season began, a
roster crunch: James was buried behind three veteran running backs and ace returner Ted Ginn Jr.
The 49ers play a physical style offensively, but running backs Frank Gore and Kendall Hunter have held
up so far this season, to the extent that veteran insurance policy Brandon Jacobs doesn’t even have a
carry, much less James.
He hasn’t been called upon on special teams, either.
James understands the reality of his situation. The veterans ahead of him want the ball just as much. He
knows his situation in the kicking game, too.
“We’ve got one of the best return guys in the league,” James said of Ginn.
And so, for the 49ers this season James is relegated to being “scout-team superstar,” he jokes. That’s not
unlike the fall of 2008 in Oregon, when he generated as much buzz as any scout-team player in recent
Ducks history.