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Every player on the 49ers’ 53-man roster (except linebacker Elijah Lee — illness) plus the yet-to-be-activated Kwon Alexander practiced on Thursday and is expected to be active, aside from the one casualty that will result from Alexander’s activation on Friday.
That activation was confirmed by head coach Kyle Shanahan, who said he was fairly sure who would be cut to make room, but declined to divulge who it would be.
Dee Ford’s re-injury sounds like it could have been prevented
It sounds as if Dee Ford (who was unavailable to media this week) probably knew he should not have played against the New Orleans Saints.
Shanahan said Thursday that the 49ers are being much more cautious with him this time after Ford re-injured his hamstring against New Orleans, missing the rest of the regular season.
They’re being more careful because Ford knew his hamstring was tight before that game and played through it anyway, then injured himself. Shanahan seemed to hope that if a similar situation were to arise, the defensive end would be more open with the training staff, and the training staff might press him more before Saturday’s game to ensure he is able to play with a lower risk of re-injury.
“We did wait longer,” Shanahan said. “It was more we’re trying to be smarter about it. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I think Dee is also. It’s tough for athletes in these situations. They want to play no matter what. When we look back at New Orleans, I think Dee was a little bit tight before the game. It’s a little tight. He knows how much we’re counting on him to go out. He’s not going to come up and say, ‘Hey, coach, I’m a little tight.’ No one totally knows. He thought he could go.
“The way Dee Ford comes off the ball, his fourth play of the game, he came off hard and he tweaked his hamstring again. Now we can look back and Dee can learn from that and I can learn from that, too. I hope Dee, if he feels that tight, he can come tell me. Now I know from that history of what happened in New Orleans, ‘You’re feeling like that,’ I know what that means. Then we have to make a decision whether we want to make that gamble or not.”
Ford and defensive lineman Kentavius Street are the only two players listed as questionable for Saturday’s Divisional Round game against the Minnesota Vikings. It would be a shock to see Ford not available, but it would likely represent a sense of caution that the 49ers feel is necessary to protect him from himself.
Why is Tevin Coleman still starting? His physicality, maybe
Since Week 9 of the NFL season, Tevin Coleman has been poor (a more detailed description of how poor below). Yet, he has started 11 of the 49ers’ 16 regular-season games and each of the last nine. Shanahan was asked Thursday why he continues to start:
“Because Tevin brings a lot to our game,” Shanahan said. “I know he hasn’t had the same yards per carry as [RB] Raheem [Mostert] has done. I don’t really care much who the starter is. All those guys play. Raheem has got the bulk of it. Usually, in my opinion, the guy who gets the bulk of the carries is usually the guy we call the starter because we’re treating him as the starter.
“If he’s not out there the first play, I know no one else calls him the starter because that’s what matters, I guess, to be called a starter. Tevin started out that way this year. I think he handles it very well. I think Raheem is very comfortable in his situation when he comes in and doesn’t have a problem with it. There’s a different element to all of them. I do like having Tevin out there because the way he hits holes, he brings a little different physicality to the game. But I like what all our backs do.”
Shanahan’s answer was wholly unsatisfying.
He essentially said that Coleman isn’t the starter, Mostert is (which does not explain why Mostert isn’t on the field to begin the game) and described three reasons for liking Coleman as the starter: his speed hitting the hole, his physicality and that he handles the starting role “very well.” Shanahan said Mostert is “very comfortable in his situation” as the non-starting starter, though he has never actually started a game in his career, so there is no proof he’d be uncomfortable as a starter.
If you’ve seen Coleman compared to the rest of the 49ers’ running backs this season, you know he’s disadvantaged in hitting the hole, and if the only other positive outside of his comfortability as the starter is his physicality, has Shanahan forgotten about Jeff Wilson Jr.?
Since Week 9, Coleman has averaged 3.21 yards per carry and amassed 212 rushing yards (23.2 per game) and 119 receiving yards (13.2 per game). He has seven total touchdowns on the season, but six of those came before Week 9. Since his Week 8 performance against the Panthers, which composes about 20 percent of his rushing yards on the season and more than half of his touchdowns (11 carries, 105 yards, three TDs, two receptions, 13 yards, one TD), he’s been abysmal.
Shanahan has decreased his involvement in the offense accordingly, dropping Coleman to 4.4 rushing attempts and one receiving target per game in the last five weeks after averaging 12.8 rushing attempts and 2.8 receiving targets per game through Week 12.
But Coleman still starts and plays more than Matt Breida, who, since returning from an ankle sprain in Week 14, has rushed a total of 14 times and been targeted four times as a receiver.
And while it’s clear Coleman is no longer the favored back, it’s confounding to see him on the field to start, and over Breida. At this point, despite the occasional decent chunk of yardage, he’s a head-scratcher when Mostert, Breida and Wilson (3.9 yards per carry, 105 rushing yards, four TDs, 34 receiving yards, two TDs) as the other options.
I get it. The 49ers paid for Coleman this offseason and don’t want to make the move of shepherding him to the sideline for the unheralded Wilson. But they would rue that decision if it haunts them in the playoffs, in one of those not-quite-sneak situations where they want to run it but don’t have Wilson, who has five combined touchdowns on the season, including that game-winner on his only snap of the game against the Arizona Cardinals.
If there was a clear reason Coleman was preferred over Wilson, it wouldn’t be an issue. But too often, Coleman looks unprepared on swing passes and does not, as Shanahan suggested, hit the hole well.
This is not to say Coleman is a bad running back; he’s proven he’s not. But at this point, he’s lost what made him great (that ability to hit the hole with speed and power and elude tackles, while being a threat in the pass game) and is more of a liability for the 49ers than an asset.
