49ers training camp recap, Aug 12: Joint practice with the Texans

When I asked S Antoine Bethea if it was nice to finally hit someone else for a change, the light in his eyes, along with the enthusiastic “Oh, yeah!” indicated that the first joint practice for the San Francisco 49ers was a good idea for more than one reason. The 49ers hosted the Houston Texans on the practice field and each team was happy to introduce new blood into their training camp.

The coaching staffs of both teams worked coordinating schemes to ensure a competitive and productive practice. Both teams did their own calisthenics and then broke up by offense and defense. The 49ers offense and the Texans defense were on the near field and the reverse was on the far field. Unfortunately, that makes it impossible to watch both fields at the same time as the media is not allowed to stand between the fields but only on the far ends. As a result, I watched a little more offense than defense. Here are a few observations.

• As most of you already know, QB Colin Kaepernick did not throw the ball, sitting out his 2nd day of practice in a row. He was experiencing tightness in his shoulder and “wanted to stay ahead” of the recovery process after his numerous off season surgeries. He did take a few snaps for a designed QB run as well as hand offs to RBs. Kaepernick stated his his arm usually “snaps back pretty quick” and he’s not too worried about it. Likely we will see Gabbert first on Sunday.

• Eric Reid was not at practice as he is expecting his second child.
• Arik Amstead did not participate in team drills, still taking it easy on his sore shoulder. He did participate in warm ups prior to team drills but stood on the sidelines with the rest of the defense afterwards.
• Bruce Ellington had a great practice catching nearly everything thats was thrown at him. He did drop one pass that glanced off of his fingertips during 1-on-1s.
• One of the prettiest passes of the day was a 25 yard pass from Jeff Driskel to Bryce Treggs. Both rookies should see the field quite a bit on Sunday.
• Jaquiski Tartt, who started in place of the absent Reid, recorded an interception of a Brock Osweiler pass that may have been tipped at the line of scrimmage.

• Thaddeus Lewis also had a nice pass where he threaded the needle between two Texans defenders right into the hands of DeAndrew White.
• OL for the 1s was what we’ve seen most of the week. Joe Staley, Zane Beadles, Daniel Kilgore, Andrew Tiller and Trent Brown. Anthony Davis worked with the 2s as did Joshua Garnett who played at the left guard position for the second day in a row.
• Ray Ray Armstrong played inside next to NaVorro Bowman while Ahmad Brooks played outside. When Tartt had his INT, DeForest Buckner was on the left side, Tony Jerod-Eddie in the middle and Tank Carradine was on the right.

The team will have a walk through/light practice on Saturday before Sunday’s game which kicks off at 4 p.m. PT. The 49ers will have another joint practice session in Denver next week.