SANTA CLARA — Coach Kyle Shanahan alluded Saturday night that the 49ers’ injury-strewn state could impact this week’s joint practices with the New Orleans Saints, and indeed an audible has been called.
Those scrimmages no longer will take place Thursday and Friday at UC Irvine, where the Saints have spent training camp the past few weeks. It was a mutually agreed upon cancellation, the 49ers announced.
“Kyle reached out to me yesterday, making me aware that they have some things going on in terms of having enough able bodies to have some good practices,” Saints coach Dennis Allen told reporters Sunday in Irvine.
After Saturday’s 17-13 preseason-opening loss to the host Tennessee Titans, Shanahan said of the scheduled joint practices: “It’s awesome to get a chance to scrimmage against people. We’re a little banged up so we have to figure out how to pull that out.
“Last week we had 23 guys out last time practice, so hopefully we get more of them back so we have a decent scrimmage.”
More injuries and pains surely came Saturday night, although the only one announced by the 49ers was cornerback Ambry Thomas’ fractured right forearm.
Almost all 49ers’ regular starters were held out of the game, either as a precaution or because they were coping with a health issue, the latter of which is the case for running backs Christian McCaffrey (calf), Elijah Mitchell (hamstring) and Isaac Guerendo (hamstring); linebacker Fred Warner (foot); and, wide receivers Rickey Pearsall (shoulder) and Danny Gray (shoulder).
Joint practices have been almost an annual staple of the 49ers’ preseason schedule since Shanahan came aboard in 2017. The 49ers hosted the Denver Broncos in 2017, then hit the road for joint practices at the Houston Texans (2018), the Denver Broncos (2019), the Los Angeles Chargers (2022), the Minnesota Vikings (2022), and the Las Vegas Raiders (2023).
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The 49ers will resume practicing Monday, then give players a day off Tuesday before three consecutive days of 10:25 a.m. practices, all of which are closed to the public. Their next preseason game will be the only one hosted by Levi’s Stadium, on Sunday against the Saints.
“We’re going to be practicing against ourselves for the next four days and we’ll probably take some of that planned work against the 49ers and will take the skeleton of that to work against ourselves,” Allen said.
The Saints also opened their preseason Saturday night, winning 16-14 at Arizona and not taking on significant casualties in the process. They held a light practice Sunday and are off Monday.
All but two NFL teams — the Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs — scheduled joint practices in training camp, and the Rams were maximizing their allotted four days by spreading them out in one-day sessions against three different clubs.
Quarterback Josh Dobbs, who played the second half Saturday in his 49ers debut, said of joint practices: “It’s a great opportunity to compete, continue to grow within the offense, continue to help the young guys get up to speed.”
Added Allen: “I enjoy the joint practices. It’s good to go up against somebody else. but other than that, we’re still going to get some good work here.”
