For several years under Kyle Shanahan, the San Francisco 49ers typically practiced three days in a row. The team changed their schedule for this training camp. It’s technically the first week, and the 49ers practiced Sunday and Monday before having a “jog-thru” on Tuesday. They returned to the practice field on Wednesday and were given Thursday off.
Offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak was asked whether this change was due to the number of injuries the 49ers suffered at wide receiver last summer, in an effort
to keep everyone, specifically the receivers, fresh and healthy throughout the summer.
It’s a fair question, with injuries to Jauan Jennings, Jacob Cowing, and Jordan Watkins. But Kubiak and the 49ers — or any team — aren’t going to change their schedule to benefit one position group.
Kubiak said, “It’s definitely not just about the receivers. We’re never going to make an adjustment to benefit one position group. It was a team thing. Just studying, talking to different people around the league and looking at different ways people do camp. We just thought it was a smart adjustment for us to not be going three days in a row of practice.”
So far, the pivot from 3-day blocks hasn’t changed the 49ers’ injury luck. Multiple starters and contributors have already been dinged up, including Ricky Pearsall, Jordan James, and Malik Mustapha.
The Niners can’t let the results frustrate their process. With some first-stringers out, that gives some of the depth an opportunity to fill in. Kubiak mentioned how that’s another benefit:
“The other benefit of that was that everybody gets to practice every day. We have days when we were doing our traditional three-day block where a lot of vets would be missing that third day to kind of take the workload off of them.
The way we’re doing it now is everyone’s out there every day and we don’t have to compensate for a lower number in a practice, which is where sometimes you might get an injury.
When you’re low on receivers, one day you’re low on linemen or something, guys have to take more reps. So, we’re trying to avoid that as best we can by adding that jog-through day. Yesterday was good. It was our first one and hopefully we get the results we want moving forward.”
More reps allows for the coaching staff to evaluate the youth and new faces on the roster. The 49ers don’t need to see what they have in a Christian McCaffrey, Fred Warner, or Trent Williams. We know Renardo Green is going to be a starting cornerback. But what if Jack Jones needs to play at some point? The same is true for Enrqiue Cruz Jr., Nick Martin, and a handful of other players up and down the roster.
