San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said he hasn’t fully made a decision yet, but he plans on playing most of his starters this Saturday against the Las Vegas Raiders. Shanahan believes the decision is out of his hands, thanks to a plethora of injuries:
The fact that so many guys are hurt right now, it kind of takes the decision process out for me. I think there are three healthy starters on defense right now. But it does put more pressure on the 3s and stuff. The 2s become the 1s and the 3s become the 2s.
We don’t really have 3s right now.
I look at it all like how many time you’re going to get over the next few weeks and stuff. I’d like to get a lot of work for as many guys as I can on Saturday. We’re going to try and treat the following week like a normal week, where we take Monday and Tuesday off, and try to have a normal Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday schedule. We’ll take Monday off because it’s a Saturday game.
Shanahan expressed concerns about some players having too much time off and when to bring them back. So that’s something else the Niners are dealing with as they try to get through August without any additional injuries.
We can expect to see Brock Purdy. Shanahan said, “I’d like Brock to play. I planned on getting these starters going. There might be a couple of guys I rest. I plan on some starters to play.”
If Purdy plays, that means we’ll likely see George Kittle, Ricky Pearsall, and maybe even Christian McCaffrey, given the lack of depth at running back.
