Darnell Dockett makes 49ers practice debut, working on snap count

The San Francisco 49ers held their third day of practice on Monday, and one notable participant was defensive tackle Darnell Dockett. After sitting out the first two days of team drills, Dockett took part in some nickel work on Monday. Dockett spent the offseason rehabbing his torn ACL. He said during OTAs that he would be ready come Week 1, and he would appear good to go.

The team can rotate Dockett in wherever needed, but my expectation is that he will primarily work as a nickel defensive tackle. I've seen some folks suggesting he will be in the starting base defense, but at this point that seems unlikely. He will not be getting much work, if any, in the base defense during camp. And with Quinton Dial and Glenn Dorsey handling those first team reps, I see that staying the same.

Jim Tomsula talked briefly about Dockett's role in camp:

"Yeah, well this I think you will have some background on me with knees. I've had different guys coming back off of the knees. And he's ready to go. There's no limitations from him from the training room. But, just the point of sitting down, sitting on double teams, all the base work, which we did predominately yesterday. Darnell, we aren't going to have him in there doing that. I don't want him in there doing that. That's not from the training room. That's just from being a coach. He will be doing more of the nickel stuff, the sub stuff, you'll see that stuff going on right now, that's the way we will start that."

He has also talked about rep counts during training camp. Reggie Bush has not been rushed into anything, Joe Staley got a break on Monday, and Tomsula suggested NaVorro Bowman will have a rep count through August. For the veterans, the key is just getting to the September 14 opener healthy and ready to go.