49ers notebook: Thursday’s practice canceled while players deal with injuries

Head coach Kyle Shanahan decided to call an audible for Thursday’s practice as his team had been nicked up throughout training camp.

So instead of a normal padded practice Thursday, the 49ers held a walkthrough allowing players to take a physical break after Wednesday’s taxing session that saw tight end George Kittle exit early with hamstring tightness, Shanahan said. Kittle is not expected to miss time.

“I think it’s my responsibility to shut them down a little bit, protect them from themselves,” said Shanahan.

The Sept. 13 regular season opener is less than three weeks away and Shanahan’s team is dealing with a slew of injuries to prominent players. Shanahan said those injury issues get compounded when backups have to increase their reps, which is more taxing this season because roster sizes were trimmed from 90 to 80 players due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So it ends up being kind of a chain reaction to everything,” Shanahan said. “There’s nothing I want to more than practice because it’s my responsibility to prepare these guys for Week 1 and that’s the only way you can do it. But you’re not going to prepared for Week 1 if you’re not healthy. So that’s kind of the dilemma we’re at every day right now.”

Many teams throughout the NFL on Thursday canceled their practices as a form of protest and to raise awareness for racial injustice issues which were pushed to the forefront this week with the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man in Kenosha, Wisc. Blake survived the shooting but remains in the hospital. He’s believed to be paralyzed after taking seven bullets to his back with his three children in his nearby car.

The Milwaukee Bucks decided not to play in their playoff game against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday it what could become a landmark moment for the movement. NBA players decided to cancel their playoff games Thursday and the postseason will resume later. Three Major League Baseball games were canceled as well, including the Oakland Athletics’ contest against the Texas Rangers.

Shanahan said the 49ers have continued to have dialogue about social justice issues, as they did throughout the offseason in light of George Floyd’s killing, but said the team did not cancel practice Thursday as a form of protest.

“I usually follow the lead of our players on that,” Shanahan said. “If they wanted to not practice today, we definitely would have done that, but no one brought that to my attention. I opened it up to all of them and that wasn’t what they wanted to do.”

Injury updates on Kyle Juszczyk, Marcell Harris, Ross Reynolds and others

In addition to the injuries to top defensive ends Nick Bosa (leg strain) and Dee Ford (calf irritation) — and receivers Brandon Aiyuk (hamstring) and Deebo Samuel (broken foot) — Shanahan said fullback Kyle Juszczyk is “week to week” after straining his hamstring recently.

Juszczyk was seen during Wednesday’s session in street clothes doing a light workout with Aiyuk, who strained his hamstring earlier in the week. Both players remain uncertain for the opener.

Additionally, backup strong safety Marcell Harris tweaked his ankle, which explains his absence from Wednesday’s practice. Shanahan said Harris participated in Thursday’s walkthrough and is expected to be back on the field Friday.

The 49ers got some good news on two other players dealing with injuries: tight end Ross Dwelley and backup offensive lineman Ross Reynolds.

Dwelley has a foot injury that caused him considerable pain, Shanahan said, which had the team worried it might be serious. But the pain has subsided and Dwelley is now considered day-to-day, though unlikely to practice Friday.

Reynolds was carted off the practice field on Sunday with a leg injury. Shanahan said there were no ligament tears or broken bones. The injury was a bone bruise that isn’t expected to be long-term. Reynolds is competing for a spot to provide depth along the interior of the offensive line after spending last season on the practice squad.

Shanahan ponders pumped-in crowd noise

The NFL is considering having in-stadium crowd noise pumped in through speakers to make up for the absence of fans early in the regular season.

Which also means Levi’s Stadium’s sound system might have to be altered. The main speakers for the public address system are housed in the scoreboard behind the south end zone with none in the north side. That means the south side of the field could be considerably louder than the north, so adding speakers to the north side might balance the sound out.

“I’m still trying to understand what the parameters are of that,” Shanahan said. “Once we do get any official word (from the league) of exactly what the rules are, I think we’re going to have a lot of ideas.

“Right now I’m hearing you got to press play on the noise at the beginning of the game, and you can’t turn it off until the end of the game, so that means we’re helping both D-lines when we’re at home. So there’s lots of stuff that I really don’t know about yet and I got a lot of ideas, but trying not to waste too many extra thoughts when I don’t know the exact parameters yet.”

The 49ers announced this week that there will be no fans in attendance for Week 1 against Arizona, but didn’t rule out having fans later in the season. The team will continue to work with Santa Clara County to make those determinations.

This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 1:35 PM.