San Francisco 49ers: Training camp battles to watch at each position
By Peter Panacy
Cornerback: Ahkello Witherspoon vs. Jason Verrett
A year ago, then-second-year cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon wasn’t exactly a training camp standout. He was regularly beat in practices, and those unfortunate efforts carried over into the regular season, where Witherspoon was ranked the worst cornerback out of 112 qualifiers, per Pro Football Focus.
Influenced by this, PFF also ranked the 49ers secondary dead last in the league, too.
One of the bigger moves San Francisco made to address this was to bring aboard oft-injured cornerback Jason Verrett on a one-year deal. When healthy, Verrett is a Pro Bowl-caliber player. And the Niners are hoping he stays healthy in 2019.
Or, at least, Witherspoon makes Verrett’s presence less important.
Witherspoon looked solid enough during OTAs. And while Verrett didn’t participate, still recovering from his 2018 Achilles tear, there’s a nice bout for the No. 2 cornerback spot budding between the two players.
If Witherspoon wins it and goes on to have a solid 2019 campaign, it will make the Niners feel much better about the position moving forward.