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The San Francisco 49ers will see some new faces on their cornerback depth chart this fall, and one guy who will likely get a serious shot at playing time is Keith Reaser. The 49ers spent a fifth round pick on Reaser in spite of the fact that he had suffered a torn ACL in 2013, midway through his final season at Florida Atlantic, and had to get a second surgery in February of 2014. He spent the season on the NFI list, and will get a chance to complete his first full offseason workout program and training camp in the coming months.
Reaser posted the below video, and while it is just a short video, it would seem to show us more than something like NaVorro Bowman's basketball video. Reaser is doing a lot of quick cutting in short yardage, and doing an actual football-related workout.
The 49ers spent the fifth on Reaser, and then a sixth on Kenneth Acker. The team placed Acker on injured reserve at the end of last year's training camp, but that felt more like a stashing move than a serious injury. The team could have potentially rolled the dice with Acker, but you can't really fault the group they went with heading into the regular season.
The 49ers kept Tramaine Brock, Chris Culliver, Chris Cook, Perrish Cox and Dontae Johnson at the end of August. While Brock obviously had the toe problems, he was going to make the roster. Cook ended up on injured reserve later in the year, but he was looking pretty solid before then. And obviously Cully, Cox and Johnson all made significant contributions las year.
Heading into this year, there are a whole lot of bodies in the mix. They have Brock, Johnson, Cook, Acker and Reaser, but then they also have Shareece Wright, Leon McFadden and Marcus Cromartie, If they decided to keep six cornerbacks, they could keep Brock, Johnson, Cook, Wright, Acker and Reaser.
McFadden and Cromartie are not exactly random scrubs. They have not panned out like some expected, but there is some talent there. And this does not even factor in a potential draft pick. If the team went high at cornerback, maybe Tramaine Brock gets cut or traded at some point in camp. I am not expecting that right now, but there are a lot of interesting options for the position. Some could struggle mightily in camp, but right now, I think it is easy to be positively intrigued by this position competition.