There were no visible bruises on Jimmy Raye’s face Saturday morning. He looked pretty good for a guy who had come through such a brutal revolving door.

Raye, to refresh your memory, is the 49ers’ seventh new offensive coordinator in the past seven seasons. Records are sketchy. But it’s hard to believe that any other current NFL team has gone 7 for 7 in that department.
Makes you wonder how the 49ers have managed to stay so offensively dominant and awesome over these past seven years.
Oh, that’s right. They haven’t.
Raye’s job is to fix all of that in the next five minutes, if possible. That’s what everyone wants. But that is not possible.
And so, at this weekend’s 49ers mini-camp, Raye continues to go about his business methodically and quietly. He is installing his pretty-much-old-school offense and trying to get all of his personnel on the same page. He has three more months.
Of course, a far more basic question confronts Raye, who came here after three seasons with the New York Jets: Do the 49ers contain enough talent to get the job done?
“I think we have good players,” Raye said in his soft voice after Saturday’s morning practice, which was high-tempo and efficient. “I think that, like all coordinators on all teams, there are areas where you would want to go pick someone else from another team.
"But I think with what we have and what we’ll evolve into offensively, we will do with what we have. And I think it will be good enough to win.”
That’s a very honest answer, when you think about it. Raye is not promising the moon landing every week. He is only promising that the 49ers will orbit the moon and have a chance to land.
Not loud and exciting enough for you? Too bad. You are not going to hear screaming from Jimmy Raye. He does not do screaming. He does not have to do screaming, because he was hired by Coach Mike Singletary, who does do screaming, to implement Singletary’s vision of physically and mentally tough football on offense.
Raye, a 63-year-old former Michigan State quarterback, is setting a good example for that toughness. He has flare-ups of back soreness, the residue of major surgery a few years ago. Which is why, at Saturday’s mini-camp sessions, Raye was wearing a pair of small air mattresses on his feet.
That’s what they looked like, anyway. On the bottom of each sole was a thick foam pad held together with duct tape and then attached with a Velcro strap to Raye’s normal shoes. Trainer Jeff Ferguson hand-assembled the footwear. As a bonus, if the practice field floods, Raye could walk back to his office on top of the water.
“They’re called Air Rayes,” he joked, then explained: “Standing on the artificial turf, in particular, is difficult for me twice a day. When I’m out on the field, these just cushion the stress on my lower back and give me energy and vitality.”
Any plans for mass production?
“Yeah,” Raye said. “In fact, we talked to the patent lawyer today.”
Make that energy, vitality and a sense of humor. All will come in very handy for Raye this autumn. Especially the sense of humor.
So far, from the practice field sideline, Raye’s offense is just as advertised — a two-back-based system designed to grind down opponents with the running game, while keeping the pass as an effective change-up.
But here’s the more interesting twist: Raye also wants every offensive player to know exactly what every other offensive player is doing — on every play. This is why installing the Raye system is taking a little more time.
“We’ll sit in an offensive meeting,” center Eric Heitmann said, “and it’s important to Jimmy that we, as offensive lineman, understand why the quarterback is getting the ball out to a hot route.
“If we know what the quarterback is thinking on blitzes, what the receivers are thinking, it can help our technique and our timing, our blocking schemes. As an offensive line, it helps us to understand the entire play, all facets of every position.”
In other words, the 312-pound Heitmann now knows enough that in a pinch, he could fill in at wide receiver?
“If I have to, yeah,” Heitmann said, deadpan. “Just put me out there at the ’Z.”’
Still, who are we kidding? Quarterback remains the focus of every offense. Raye says he won’t settle on a starter until he sees both Shaun Hill and Alex Smith play some exhibitions.
However, on Saturday when Raye was asked to name the quarterback he has worked with who fit his system the best, he quickly mentioned Rich Gannon. Raye coached him in Kansas City from 1995-98.
“We like a guy that can create, that can stretch the field, that has good awareness, has all the areas of the game from a mental standpoint “... and then can make plays with his arms and feet,” Raye said.
Frankly, that sounds a little more like Smith than Hill. But it’s a long way from now to September. For now, Raye is treading softly on his air mattresses and trying to slowly inflate the offense into something effective — and maybe even capable of stopping a revolving door.