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Oh, you thought Tuesday was when the 49ers would go through all of the machinations to set their roster for Week 1 and the rest of the regular season?
No, it turns out, that was not at all what happened when the cutdown to 53 players was announced and the 49ers presented the world with a very temporary roster that:
• Doesn’t have a punter;
• Includes only two wide receivers who have been healthy (or happy) enough to practice recently, one of whom was acquired just last week;
• Has an incredible total of 21 offensive and defensive linemen, when most teams (including the 49ers last year) feel fine keeping 17 or 18 of the big guys at any one time;
• Includes at least six players — more than 10% of the roster! (and I might be missing one, two, or many more) — whose health makes them questionable to play the opener Sept. 7 in Seattle and several who seem quite likely to miss many more games than that.
NFL cutdown day, of course, is never about establishing a “final” active roster. It’s always fluid, through every day of the season. Lots of things are happening at once when any team starts its final preparations for Week 1. But the 49ers just put together the most provisional 53-man roster I’ve ever seen.
Maybe the oddest part is that I count seven or eight guys on Tuesday’s cut list that I suspect the 49ers plan to bring back, stash on the practice squad, and play for a few games in 2025. These are players I think the 49ers are counting on down the road. But they just cut all of them to make sure they could keep other players whom I think they’ll end up mostly putting on IR. Or cutting later? Or ... I’m not sure? It’s confusing.
Really, this isn’t an actual roster and depth chart; it’s a rough draft.
That’s not wholly negative, and it’s absolutely not unplanned, by the way. Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch clearly looked at this cut as the early part of a process that was complicated by the rash of summer injuries. And they are obviously primed to make a flurry of accompanying moves Wednesday and going forward.
Most of this is happening because the 49ers have all those injured players who likely will be back soon, but maybe not in Week 1. So the team tried to create a way to carry a 56- or 57-man roster into this week. The injured reserve rules loosen up for players who make the initial cut to 53 then are put on IR later — figure that’s the path this week for Jacob Cowing, Jordan Watkins, and one or two others.
Once those players go on IR, the 49ers can bring back punter Thomas Morstead and a healthy WR or two; maybe they’ll bring back just-cut Robbie Chosen or Russell Gage, or maybe they’ll pick up a WR who was cut by another team Tuesday. Maybe they’ve got a trade on deck.
Right now, with Brandon Aiyuk on IR and Demarcus Robinson suspended for three games, this is their entire list of healthy WRs: Ricky Pearsall and Skyy Moore, who combined for 31 catches last season.
They also have Jauan Jennings, though they may not know if he’s going to practice Wednesday due to his calf injury or his contractual issue or both. I’ve heard nothing new about a resolution to this, but maybe the 49ers and Jennings have an understanding now. If they don’t? Whew. They have no other veteran WRs who have done much of anything in the NFL.
The 49ers might get away with all these moves to set up other moves to set up three more moves. If they do, they should be applauded for their creativity and their gumption.
But Shanahan and Lynch have a lot of work left to do this week, at a time when they probably wish they were far more settled and their roster looked far less haphazard.
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