Eric

Heitmann

Heitman is converting to center while Jeremy Newberry recovers from another setback.

According to PFT, Heitmann’s new deal will keep him in San Francisco through 2011 and includes a $1.25 signing bonus with base salaries of $800,000, $1.4 million and $1.95 million over the next three years.

They will each make $656,000.

It will be Heitmann’s second lost season in a row; he missed 2010 with a fractured left fibula and the neck complications. The latest surgery was to repair a ruptured disk in the neck. (Free agent David Baas just got more leverage.) Heitmann’s timetable for recovery has been optimistically set at six months. His agent says Heitmann’s “hopes are to play as soon as he’s cleared.”

Throwing Andy McCollum and Mike Gruttadauria under the bus a bit. Martz says Heitmann, who was locked up through 2011 last offseason, should be a Pro Bowler. He’s helped put Frank Gore on pace for 1,600 total yards in ’08.