SANTA CLARA — After playing their first preseason game over the weekend, the 49ers are off Tuesday.
Here are some ruminations on the issues facing the team with four weeks left before their season opener, which they aim to reach was healthy as possible:
The problem of the walking wounded
The follow-up news in the aftermath of a 17-13 exhibition loss in Tennessee was a downer in that Kalia Davis, who played as if he could be an interior contributor on the defensive line, was lost until midseason or so after undergoing knee surgery. Same goes for cornerback Ambry Thomas, who fractured his forearm and was already facing an uphill battle to make the 53-man roster at a position fortified in the offseason.
Both will go on injured reserve, but it’s not as if the 49ers will have a problem fielding a 53-man roster in Week 1.
Coach Kyle Shanahan conceded the 23 players who missed practice last Thursday would be a much smaller number in the “old days” of two-a-days and an old-school mentality.
Yes, the Davis and Thomas injuries were unfortunate. But even if the injuries contributed to canceling joint practices with the New Orleans Saints this week, it seems most of the walking wounded are on track for Week 1 against the New York Jets.
“The other guys are anywhere from 10 days to three weeks,” Shanahan said. “They’re guys we expect to be ready for the season.”
Middle linebacker Fred Warner was back on the field Monday. Tight end George Kittle was a featured attraction. Christian McCaffrey didn’t practice, but he told NFL Network last week that if a regular season game were upcoming, he’d play.
It’s exactly what you’d expect him to say, but presently it doesn’t seem like an issue.
The bottom line is NFL camps and preseasons are designed for only one thing — getting the team to Week 1 ready to go. The old days of beating up bodies at practice and tests of manhood are thankfully long gone. Even for Shanahan, who believes practicing football on schedule is essential to being good at football is on board.
So is defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen, who played 10 years as an NFL safety of 131 games from 2001 through 2010.
“We (were) going 10 days in a row before our first day off,” Sorensen recalled last week about camp practices in his playing days. “You can’t even walk when you wake up. And I’m like, ‘I have two practices today. What are we doing?’
“You always hear the guys before me had it even worse.”
Big money, head injuries and overall body trauma changed everything. And in a good way.
The injuries are a concern. In football’s modern era, they’re not a big deal at this point.
Third-round draft pick Dominick Puni (77) has been running with the first team since camp began and had a promising exhibition opener. Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group
Puni in the lead
With Jon Feliciano dealing with a chronic knee issue and Spencer Burford recovering from a broken hand, it looks as if the right guard spot is Dominick Puni’s job to lose.
“He’s been good since his first snap,” Shanahan said. “It hasn’t seemed too big for him. He’s gotten better each day in practice. And when you see that, you really want to see how it is in a game and if anything changes.”
Against Tennessee, it didn’t.
“Anytime somebody gets starter reps, it’s always open,” Shanahan said. “You don’t just give it away and stuff, but it’s always an opportunity. People get opportunities and you see how they take advantage of it. He’s doing a hell of a job so far.”
The dynamic kickoff
Shanahan was only being half-serious — I think — when he was asked about the new kickoff rules and whether the 49ers might simply kick into the end zone and let the opponent start on the 30-yard line.
“It’s a hell of an idea,” Shanahan said. “Yeah, we’re all talking about that and it looks like it’ll make a lot of sense once the season starts. But this was our first week doing it.”
Shanahan’s philosophy isn’t that he expects special teams to win games. He just expects them not to create losses. Shanahan is spending more time on special teams than usual — more than he wants.
“I’ve always believed the key to special teams is just being sound,” Shanahan said. “You want to win the game on special teams, but the main thing is you don’t lose it. And when you’re experiencing new things like this, there’s a lot of unknowns and that’s why we all have to be very involved in it.”
The guess here is that in Week 1, the 49ers on the return side of kickoffs will have some wrinkles and Deebo Samuel will play a role. It’s got to be intriguing to see if Samuel can break past the initial wave and make a big play.
The odds of seeing that in a preseason game are slim, however.
Hufanga’s return
Talanoa Hufanga, a 2022 All-Pro, could be cleared after a visit with the doctor to practice this week. It promises to be one of the more interesting sidelights of the preseason.
Ji’Ayir Brown appears locked in at one safety position. George Odum has run alongside Brown since Day 1. Odum’s special teams contributions are the reason he’s on the roster, but Shanahan said it won’t prevent him from being a starter on defense if that’s best for the team.
And then there’s Malik Mustapha, who had a big-time goal line stuff as well as a special teams tackle on kickoff returns. The 49ers would love to see Mustapha become an enforcer on the backend and his start is encouraging.
Hufanga is going to have be awfully good immediately to reclaim his starting role in Week 1. He was the rage in 2022 but under defensive coordinator Steve Wilks in his second season, Hufanga appeared to struggle finding that form up until the time he was injured.
The Aiyuk-Williams saga
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It seems like the Brandon Aiyuk hold-in issue is pretty clear. He wants more than the 49ers are willing to pay. And the 49ers are uninterested in trading him without compensation they deem proper. Is Aiyuk eventually willing to take less to play with a team he already knows, a system he already knows and a pretty good chance at another deep playoff run? To be kind, the signals have been mixed.
As for Trent Williams, we’re a couple of weeks away from the panic stage. As Aaron Banks said a couple of weeks back, “When he comes back, he’ll still be Trent Williams.”
