Both Of The 49ers' Outside Cornerbacks Missed The Same Practice
Camp notebook. Deommodore Lenoir has a shoulder the club announced on Saturday and Renardo Green has a hamstring it has said nothing about since Friday, and neither man was in the first practice since the Chargers game. Four men came back, including a running back who had not practiced once in this camp. Nick Bosa and Christian McCaffrey missed the session their head coach pointed at four days ago.
San Francisco practiced at 1:50 p.m. on Saturday, the first session since Thursday's win at the Chargers, and the club came out of it with two more injuries than it went in with. Both are shoulders. Both men are day-to-day.
The two names are Deommodore Lenoir and De'Zhaun Stribling, which is a starting cornerback and a rookie receiver who has caught 11 passes in two preseason games. The club announced both, and David Bonilla carries its wording at 49ers Webzone, published at 2:15 p.m. Kyle Madson has the same two names and the same designation from Nick Wagoner of ESPN, published at Niners Wire a minute earlier. Neither account dates either injury or says how it happened, and neither man practiced.
Renardo Green did not practice either, two days after the club said it would find out what the hamstring is. Kyle Shanahan said after Thursday's game that Green would be imaged on Friday to see whether he pulled it. No result had published at a 3:40 p.m. read of 49ers Webzone, Niners Wire and the club's newsroom index, each opened separately, and the club had posted no recap of Saturday's practice at that clock either. Bonilla has Green out of the session, and Madson has the same from Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area.
So both of the cornerbacks who start outside were out of the same practice. Jack Stewart, writing at 49ers Webzone on Saturday morning, puts the room's settled shape as Lenoir and Green outside with Upton Stout in the slot. Behind them on Saturday: Jack Jones, who broke up two passes at the Chargers, most on the team, and crossed into the projection on Friday; then Darrell Luter Jr., Ephesians Prysock, Jakob Robinson and Siran Neal. Eight days until the roster comes to 53. Neither account says who took the outside reps.
Stribling's shoulder arrived on the afternoon of his best morning. He has 11 catches for 109 yards across two preseason games, four of them for 46 yards against the Chargers on five targets, and three of the four moved the chains. Ryan Paganetti, an analytics coach who publishes NFL research, wrote on Friday that Stribling is the first player in at least twenty years to total 11 catches inside the first twenty minutes of two consecutive preseason games, with Dez Bryant in 2013 and Demaryius Thomas in 2014 the closest at ten.
Dominick Puni and C.J. West cleared the concussion protocol and practiced, and Mike Evans was back as well. Puni is the incumbent right guard and has been in the protocol for a week. His return does something to the other side of the center that the left guard competition will feel: with the starting right guard available again, the man who finishes third at left guard is surplus rather than insurance.
Jordan James practiced for the first time in this training camp. He broke a rib in the first week of it. Stewart's Saturday-morning piece on the roster bubble has him as one of the two frontrunners for the last running back job alongside Sincere McCormick, and describes him as a man who has not practiced in camp. He practiced about six hours later.
Nick Bosa and Christian McCaffrey were not in the session their head coach had pointed at. After Tuesday's joint practice with the Chargers, Shanahan said of McCaffrey, "I think if it wasn't Christian and we were in a game week, I think he would play today," and put Bosa on the same path in the same availability: "He has a lot less irritation, soreness and tendinitis, whatever you want to call it, than he had last week. So, we think he's going in the right direction, and we see him similar to Christian." Saturday was the next practice. Bonilla has Bosa out with tendinitis and soreness and McCaffrey working on a side field rather than practicing.
Three more men were out of Saturday's practice. Robert Jones, whose calf had already kept him out of the Chargers game. Nick Martin, the hamstring. Austen Pleasants, the knee that Shanahan said was not an anterior cruciate ligament. Pleasants is the third left guard candidate hurt with one preseason game left.
One transaction was reported and the club has not posted it. Madson, citing Matt Barrows of The Athletic, has San Francisco bringing back tight end Khalil Dinkins, an undrafted rookie it waived with a non-football injury designation on July 25. The club's transaction log carried nothing dated August 22 at a 3:10 p.m. read.
The week, as the club published it. Three full practices: Saturday, Sunday at 10:15 a.m. and Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. Walk-throughs Monday and Wednesday with no media availability. The preseason finale is Thursday at 5 p.m. at Allegiant Stadium, and the roster has to be at 53 by Sunday afternoon.
Nothing crossed the cut line on the 53-man tracker. Four men returned to the practice field and eight were missing from it, and every one of the twelve was already on the side of the projection he is on now. Six roster notes changed, five injury rows were rewritten, and Lenoir got a row of his own for the first time this camp. No grade moved.
Sources: David Bonilla and Jack Stewart, 49ers Webzone, August 21 and 22; Kyle Madson, Niners Wire, August 22, relaying Nick Wagoner (ESPN) and Matt Maiocco (NBC Sports Bay Area); Kirk Larrabee, 49ers Webzone, August 20, for the Shanahan post-game transcript; Kyle Madson, Niners Wire, August 18, for the Shanahan quote on Bosa; Ryan Paganetti, August 21; the 49ers' own transaction log, roster page, newsroom index and published practice and media schedule.
