against the Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne, Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\nHis position mate, Nick Bosa, tore his ACL six weeks earlier and is expected to be back for Week 1. If Williams can\u2019t play, Keion White, Sam Okuayinonu and Cam Sample are possibilities to start opposite Bosa. So is third-round draft pick Romello Height if the Rams open the game in a pass-centric formation.<\/p>\n
Height is a lean 6-foot-3, 239 pounds and was working hard with defensive line coach Kris Kocurek on Friday. His quickness is evident, but it will be interesting to see how well he gets off blocks at training camp. Fourth-round pick Gracen Halton, on the other hand, packs some punch at the same height and is 54 pounds heavier, and the defensive tackle was sending the blocking sled flying. (Yup, it\u2019s rookie camp \u2026 we are grading hits on the sled.)<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gives that same type of interior presence (that) last year you guys went out and added big C.J (West) and big A.C. (Alfred Collins),\u201d new defensive coordinator Raheem Morris said. \u201cYou know, big-time run stoppers, big-time guys that can just get off the ball, disrupt and do a bunch of different things, and you go out there and keep adding guys in those positions so you can get that constant roll-through of guys that cause absolute disruption for everybody that we play against.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 49ers have signed six of their eight draft picks to their rookie contracts, including their top pick, receiver De\u2019Zhaun Stribling. The two who have yet to sign are Height and Halton.<\/p>\n
Stribling led the 49ers\u2019 receivers through individual drills in the rookie minicamp. He looked sharp, as did undrafted Will Pauling from Notre Dame, who stood out for his quickness. Pauling, who had 381 yards and six touchdowns for the Fighting Irish last season, also handled punts for the 49ers on Friday.<\/p>\n
Stribling and the rest of the draft picks did not participate in the seven-on-seven sessions that followed the individual drills; the undrafted rookies and tryout players manned those. Stribling did line up behind the other wideouts when they were in formation and took mental repetitions.<\/p>\n
Also:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Fourth-round pick Carver Willis is working at guard after playing left tackle the last six years. That was not a surprise, as the 6-5, 303-pound Willis said he played tackle to help his Washington team win and was always told he had no NFL future at that spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be in the top 1 percent of genetics to be a franchise left tackle in the NFL,\u201d Willis said. \u201cAs much as God blessed me with, I didn\u2019t quite get that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Willis will compete with former Dolphin Robert Jones and second-year player Connor Colby for the starting left guard spot, but his real value next season will likely be his ability to back up all five offensive line spots.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think he\u2019s a really bright guy,\u201d offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said. \u201cHe can actually play center, too, we believe. We think he\u2019s a guy who has versatility across the offensive line \u2026 it\u2019ll be fun to put him in a starting point, see how he does, and just see where we can move him around too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Running back Kaelon Black<\/a> said his former Indiana teammate, quarterback Kurtis Rourke, was the first 49er to reach out to him after the 49ers drafted him in the third round. Since then, Christian McCaffrey, Brock Purdy, Fred Warner and George Kittle have welcomed him.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m just trying to take it all in,\u201d Black said. \u201cThey put my locker right next to Fred Warner\u2019s. And I said, \u2018It\u2019s real. I\u2019m really here, and I\u2019m just ready to ball.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA, Calif. \u2014 He hasn\u2019t been cleared for on-field activities and probably won\u2019t be for a while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,560,99],"class_list":["post-636886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}