Reports out of San Francisco indicate that the 49ers have a contract on the table aimed at keeping former first-overall pick Alex Smith in the fold for at least one more season.

The on-again, off-again starting quarterback for San Francisco has shown flashes of competence but has been mostly injured or disappointing (not always through faults of his own) during his first six years in the league.

At the end of the season, Smith talked pretty openly about being ready to move on to a new situation where he could get a fresh start. The fans turned on him pretty aggressively at the end of the season and, with a new coach on board in Jim Harbaugh, in a normal year my guess is Smith would already have signed somewhere else.

But this is not a normal year.

The lockout has already wiped out the early parts of what normally would be the free agency season and it has forced several teams to cancel at least one round of minicamps as well. Players and owners can talk all they want about how the lockout has not yet cost the National Football League any games. It is already eroding the offseason training schedules for teams and if it goes on much further it promises to reduce the quality of play, at least early in the season.

By now, in most years, teams would have been able to fill some holes and make plans for how they would approach the season. They would be starting to teach their free agent signees the system and have them at least semi-prepared to compete for jobs when training camps start.

But not this year. Those offseason practices are off indefinitely. And barring some miracle settlement in the next couple weeks it’s going to be even worse for the rookies. Teams generally bring their picks and rookie free agents in for a few weekends of practices following the draft to start getting them acclimated to their new systems as well.

If the lockout lasts past when training camps would start those rookies are going to be starting at ground zero — and doing so at some point months past where they would normally have at least some idea of what they are supposed to be doing.

The greed of the owners and players is delaying all of these processes.

So it hurts the rookies, but what does this mean for Alex Smith and other veterans, many of whom would otherwise be free agents right now? The lack of opportunity to bring new guys along is going to reward teams that will have continuity heading into the 2011 season. Teams with quarterbacks familiar with the systems the teams will run will be at an advantage. Teams with offensive lines that have played together in the past will be at an advantage. Teams with returning coaching staffs will be at an advantage.

Teams bringing in new coaches and new quarterbacks and a bunch of new starters across the board will be at a distinct disadvantage.The Vikings, coming off a 6-10 season with Leslie Frazier coming in as the new coach and two-year starting QB Brett Favre likely retiring for real this offseason? Take a snooze, Minnesota fans — it’s likely going to be a long season.

The 49ers already are bringing in Harbaugh as the new head coach. I think it makes sense that he wants to keep Smith at quarterback for at least this season.

Besides, while Smith has been mostly disappointing, he has shown some flashes that he can be a competent quarterback. He might be a guy on whom Harbaugh can do some reclamation work. If so, and if the 49ers can retain another good percentage of the guys who were on the team from last year‘s disappointing season, they might be able to fulfill at least some of the promise they were supposed to have heading into 2010.

They would at least be ahead of many of their counterparts across the league that are facing greater change. Even if the lockout ends sometime soon after the draft, the damage for the 2011 season has already started to accumulate and the quality of play, especially early on, could really be ugly.