Wednesday's training camp practice ended with three plays that saw quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo toss the football toward rookie wide receiver Dante Pettis. Pettis was working against second-year starting cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon and hauled in two passes, including a touchdown, during team red-zone drills.
"He moves differently than most guys," Garoppolo said of Pettis on Sunday. "He has some long limbs, long arms, long legs, and it helps him create space with defenders. He has a unique ability – I call it 'wiggle' – whatever you want to call it, though. His body moves a certain way, and he explodes out of the break and separates a foot from the guy, and that's all you need."
Pettis signed his four-year rookie contract last week on the eve of the San Francisco 49ers' first practice of training camp. He received extra offseason reps due to a back injury to second-year receiver Trent Taylor. The extra work must have helped because the rookie receiver has looked impressive during training camp.
"He's gotten better each day," head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters on Wednesday. "He's going through some of his rookie bumps like they all do but I think he's gotten better each day. It seemed like he had a real good day out there today and I hope it continues."
At least one other wide receiver has been impressed with Pettis' skills during the offseason and feels the rookie can contribute in his first NFL season.
"Once he gets it going, gets familiar with playing in the NFL, he'll definitely be great because he's got speed, he's got agility, he can catch, and he can make guys miss," Pierre Garçon said on Sunday. "He's definitely one of the good guys who's going to help us later on in the year once he gets comfortable being here."
When Pettis is out on the practice field, you can't help but notice that his movements don't match those of the other receivers on the team. As Garoppolo said, he has a 'wiggle' in his step. However, it works for the rookie, who has a knack for winning battles at the line of scrimmage.
That ability to win those battles is what attracted Shanahan and the 49ers to Pettis.
"That's one of the reasons we had him targeted very early in the draft," Shanahan explained. "I think that's why we traded up to go get him, because we knew he had the skillset that fit us. It's sometimes hard to see in college because they don't see a lot of man-to-man coverage. It's so much zone. And you don't have to be great with your feet when you're pretty talented because you can beat a lot of guys you're better than anyways."
Shanahan and the team's evaluators could see that Pettis had great movement with the football in his hands even while the former Washington Husky was returning punts on special teams. Now he just needs to make sure that movement translates while running routes in the pros.
"You combine that with his speed and his hands, his intelligence, which he's very smart, you feel pretty confident that he's going to continue to get better," Shanahan added.
