Jauan Jennings suffered a hip injury that has kept him out of practice both days to begin this week
During Thursday’s practice, the San Francisco 49ers were without wide receiver Jauan Jennings. It’s the second day in a row that Jennings has missed, as he’s dealing with a hip injury he suffered against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 6.
On Wednesday, head coach Kyle Shanahan said, “No. He had something in the game. We just didn’t know about it Friday morning.”
The 49ers have been consistent — outside of outliers like Trent Williams or the best players on the team — that if you don’t practice on Thursday, you’re unlikely to play on Sunday.
Ricky Pearsall continues to practice. Wednesday was a walk-through, but Shanahan loves the energy the rookie is bringing:
“Yeah, I think everyone was excited for him to be out. We just had walk-through today, but Monday was our first day back with him and we let him break the team down. He was excited. We didn’t do much, we just had one two-minute drill. He was out of breath from it, so we were messing with him, trying to get him to talk right away. It was more just because he was so excited to be out there, but it was a good first day and pumped to see him out there this afternoon.”
If Jennings is out, would that force the 49ers’ hand in activating Pearsall? The Chiefs are a defense that runs a ton of man coverage, more so than most teams. Jennings is one of the best receivers in the NFL at winning against man-to-man coverage.
Pearsall hasn’t played a snap in the NFL, but the Niners drafted him high for a reason and you would think, health permitting, that he’d be a better option than anybody else the 49ers would trout out there, save Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel.
Per the beat reports on hand, kickers Matthew Wright (shoulder/back) and Jake Moody did not practice, nor did defensive tackle Kevin Givens.
The following players were practicing on Thursday after being limited or were out on Wednesday:
Jordan Elliott (knee)
Malik Mustapha (ankle)
Maliek Collins (knee)
Darrell Luter (pelvis)
Leonard Floyd (vet day)
Mustapha is the big one from the names above. Obviously, Collins is a key player, but I didn’t think his status was in doubt.
Running back Jordan Mason (shoulder) and wide receiver Deebo Samuel (wrist) practiced in blue non-contact jerseys.