Dominick Puni Is In Concussion Protocol And The Left Guard Job Is Still Three Deep
Sunday was the last camp practice open to the public. San Francisco has one ordinary session and one joint practice left before Thursday at SoFi, and now it has two unsettled guard spots instead of one.
San Francisco practised at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, the last session of camp open to the public. The interior of the offensive line came out of it carrying two questions instead of one.
Dominick Puni, No. 77, is in the NFL's return-to-play protocol. Matt Maiocco reports the concussion was sustained on Saturday (NBC Sports Bay Area, Aug 16). Nick Wagoner has him as one of three men added to Sunday's non-participant list, with defensive tackle Gracen Halton, No. 93 (ankle) and receiver Demarcus Robinson, No. 7, for whom no reason has been given (ESPN, Aug 16). There is no timeline, because the protocol does not issue one.
The job on the other side of the centre is still three ways, and the offensive coordinator described it as arithmetic. Klay Kubiak, Sunday: "(With) three guys competing, there's a double-edge sword to that. You do have to divide up the reps, and that takes some reps away from guys with the ones." He said the shared work should pay off later in the season, because the club is likely to need more than one of the three.
Two sessions remain before the second preseason game and one of them is not an ordinary practice. Tuesday is a joint practice at the Chargers' facility in El Segundo, which Kubiak called a measuring stick. Thursday is the game at SoFi Stadium at 7 p.m., and Kubiak said the staff is still discussing how it will approach it; San Francisco sat every regular in the opener. A three-way split therefore has two looks left, one of them against another team's front.
Nobody has published what the first team looked like on Sunday. Maiocco's report, read at 2:58 p.m. PT, carries no alignment. Neither does Wagoner's camp file, read at 3:02. The club's own newsroom at 3:00 still had Saturday's Day 12 recap as its newest camp item, and club recaps have landed between 3:40 and 4:09 p.m. throughout this camp. 49ers Webzone, re-opened last at 3:07, had nothing on the session past the morning participation report.
Saturday's alignment is the one on the record. Connor Colby, No. 75, and rookie Carver Willis, No. 74, rotated at left guard with the first team, Robert Jones, No. 65, who had held the spot, was limited and worked second-team right guard, and Austen Pleasants, No. 62, took third-team snaps there (Bonilla, 49ers Webzone, Aug 15). Wagoner has the order: Colby first, Willis on the next set, beside Trent Williams. No exact count has been published for either day.
The projection that put Willis there was written before any of this. Maiocco's 53-man projection of May 4 lists him as the starting left guard outright and names Jones, Brett Toth and Colby as the options if he is not ready. That is three months before camp opened, and before Willis lost a week to a concussion.
The documentary version says something else. In the preseason opener Jones started at left guard and played all 44 of the first unit's snaps, with Colby beside him at right guard for the same 44. The two men were not on the same side of the centre, so the game did not test it.
Maiocco's Saturday report adds one measurement and it belongs to him: "Willis graded out tops among the 49ers' offensive linemen against Tennessee, according to PFF, while Jones had the lowest grade from that unit."
Puni's protocol changes what finishing third costs. On Friday the man who lost left guard was surplus. Jones took second-team right guard reps the next afternoon, Pleasants makes the room four deep, and the club needs a right guard on Tuesday.
Odds and ends. Nick Bosa, No. 97, went through an extensive workout on a side field, the first work of any kind he has been seen doing since August 3, and did not practise (Wagoner). C.J. West, No. 99, and Titus Leo, No. 61, were hurt on back-to-back plays in a team period and left without returning. Deebo Samuel Sr., No. 19, shook his left hand late, sat four plays and came back. Kurtis Rourke, No. 14, did not practise, and Kubiak on the ribs: "I'm not 100% [sure]. I don't think it'll be long, though."
One grade moved on this site's 53-man projection and nobody crossed the cut line. Colby goes 7 to 8 on the first-team reps. Jones holds at 9, for the reason Sunday supplied: losing the exclusive hold on left guard is a question about starting, and with Puni in a protocol he is likelier to be needed on Tuesday than he was on Friday.
Sources: Matt Maiocco, NBC Sports Bay Area, Aug 15 and Aug 16. Nick Wagoner, ESPN 49ers camp file, Aug 15 and Aug 16. David Bonilla, 49ers Webzone, Aug 15 and Aug 16. Kyle Posey, Niners Nation, Aug 15. 49ers.com official roster page, read Aug 16 for every jersey number above. The club's practice and media schedule for the week, published Aug 14. Nobody from this site was at the practice.
