After a blowout loss suffered at home to the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers have an opportunity to get back to .500 this week with a win against the Los Angeles Rams on the “road.”
Of course, the 49ers have always felt a home field advantage in Los Angeles, and have beaten the Rams seven-straight times in the regular season.
But the Rams are coming off their bye, while the 49ers nurse a laundry list of injuries. Here’s what today’s practice list looks like.
Didn’t practice
- Kyle Juszczyk (finger)
- Deebo Samuel (hamstring) – Shanahan said “he’s making progress.”
- Dre Greenlaw (calf)
- Arik Armstead (foot/ankle)
- Samson Ebukam (Achilles)
- Jauan Jennings (hamstring)
- Trent Williams (vet day)
Limited
- Jason Verett (knee) – He was activated from the physically unable to perform list on Wednesday. Said Shanahan: “We’re not ruling out this week. We want to see how he practices.”
Jordan Mason was not seen in the portion of practice made open to reporters. He was not on the injury report.
On the more encouraging side, Christian McCaffrey is expected to have the full playbook open to him this week. He spent much of the start of practice working with Bobby Turner and Anthony Lynn.
The injuries are persistent for any team, but especially the 49ers. That’s no secret.
What’s interesting is that, because it’s such a common problem, the trickle down effect can sometimes be overlooked. The 49ers defense looked woeful on Sunday a week after it played without seven starters.
Charvarius Ward was beaten badly on a go route by Marquez Valdes-Scantling in an uncharacteristic way. He only practiced on Friday of last week in limited fashion.
The attrition has meant that the 49ers’ practices haven’t exactly been, well, practices.
Joe Staley said on KNBR this week that the 49ers’ issues — from drops to false starts, offsides, turnovers, missed assignments, etc. — can only be corrected on the practice field.
Kyle Shanahan agreed on Wednesday, but said the team hasn’t really been practicing.
“I think that’s the only place to correct things is the practice field,” Shanahan said. “That’s where you do better. That’s where you do your work. And then just let it unfold in three and a half hours. That’s the fine line; everyone has that challenge in this league. You don’t get much in the offseason and you want to be able to do it and improve throughout the year.
“It’s tough when guys go down. We haven’t had a full week of practice in a number of weeks. Not by choice, just by some guys being down and it’ll be a little bit tough today. That’s why we’re just trying to keep pushing guys to get back so you can practice more.”
San Francisco has consistently been preaching that they need to correct their mistakes. In each loss, there are a few key plays gone awry. After the game, the message is that those issues can and must be amended.
But the only place, according to Shanahan and Staley, that those places get fixed, is the practice field. And the 49ers can’t practice in full because they have too many injuries.
That begs the question: If practice is the only place you believe you can fix mistakes, but you haven’t had a real practice in weeks, how do you fix them?
That’s the conundrum the 49ers face this week, in a bid to potentially reclaim their lead in the division.
