Connor Colby And Kaelon Black Fill The Two Jobs Shanahan Called Fluid

Connor Colby is San Francisco's left guard on the only depth chart the public can open.

The page at 49ers.com/team/depth-chart, read at 2:52 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, stamps itself "Last Updated on 09/4/26" and lists him first at the position with Carver Willis second. That box had been empty since August 27. It was empty through the cut to fifty-three, through the trade for Jarrett Patterson, and through the flight to Australia.

Colby is twenty-three, six feet five, three hundred and nine pounds, and in his second season. San Francisco drafted him out of Iowa in the seventh round in 2025, two hundred and forty-ninth overall. He started fifty games in college, and seven of the fifty were at left guard.

He started six as a rookie.

The job he already had once#

Chris Foerster, the offensive line coach, described the competition on July 27 in terms that have not been true for most of the six weeks since. Colby "is the incumbent and nobody else has done anything to beat him out to this point," Foerster said, in comments Matt Maiocco published that morning at NBC Sports Bay Area. "Connor had an awesome offseason. I would say through OTAs, he really established himself."

Then Robert Jones took the first-team reps, and when Jones strained a calf, the rookie Carver Willis started the last two preseason games at the position. San Francisco released Jones on August 30 and traded a 2027 seventh-round pick to Houston for Patterson the same afternoon.

Kyle Posey of Niners Nation, writing on September 3 about an earlier internal sheet, put the round trip plainly: Colby would have gone "from first string to third and back to the first team in a month's span."

The two answers#

On Monday, August 31, Kyle Shanahan was asked who would start at left guard and who the backup running back was. He said he did not know either one, and was asked whether he was withholding it from the Rams.

"Nope. It's the truth," Shanahan said, per Kevin Topley of NBC Sports Bay Area that evening. "Usually we get all three of these practices and then by that Monday is like when we come in and do leadership council, captains and, 'all right, this is who we're rolling with.' But we haven't had those three practices yet, and we just added a new guy to the group too. So it's truly fluid."

The chart now answers both. Colby at left guard. Kaelon Black second at running back behind Christian McCaffrey, with Jordan James third.

Black is the rookie. San Francisco took him in the third round in April, and he started in the game book at the Chargers on August 20 in his preseason debut, carrying eight times for thirty-three yards two days after his first full-pads practice since early August. James, in his second year, has not been on a field since fracturing a rib in late July, and his rookie season was seventeen offensive snaps. One of the two has been available.

What the rest of it says#

George Kittle is listed first at tight end and Nick Bosa first at right end. Both were on the injury list for most of August.

The club waived tight end Brayden Willis on Saturday to promote long snapper Jon Weeks from the practice squad, and two reporters read the same signal in it. Matt Barrows, the same day: Willis "could be back to the psquad, though his release is another good sign for George Kittle playing in Week 1." Posey, on Sunday afternoon: "the 49ers wouldn't run the risk of waiving a tight end during their game week." Willis went unclaimed on waivers and is expected back on the practice squad, per Posey at 2:21 p.m. Pacific, and he did not leave Australia.

Patterson is on the chart at center, second behind Jake Brendel. He arrived on August 30 to compete at guard.

The chart is a communications-staff document, which is the club's own caveat and the reason nobody in the building is bound by it. It also predates three roster moves. Sam Okuayinonu is still listed second at left end and went on injured reserve on September 4. Brayden Willis is still listed at tight end. The long snapper row is empty, which is the last unfilled first-team box on a chart with twenty-nine rows, and Weeks has been on the active roster since Saturday.

Tonight#

San Francisco's first game-week practice is Sunday at 7:50 p.m. Pacific, which is 12:50 p.m. Monday at AAMI Park in Melbourne. Shanahan speaks an hour and twenty minutes before it. The club practises again Monday and Tuesday evening Pacific, holds no media availability on Wednesday, and plays the Rams at 5:35 p.m. Pacific on Thursday, 10:35 a.m. Friday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The schedule is the club's own, published Sunday morning at 49ers Webzone. Three practices remain, which is the number Shanahan said on August 31 he had not yet had.