Nobody San Francisco Added Thursday Plays Defensive Tackle

Alfred Collins is on injured reserve. The two men San Francisco added for its season opener are KhaDarel Hodge, a receiver, and Ogbo Okoronkwo, a pass rusher who lines up on the edge.

All three moves came in one release at 1:53 p.m. Pacific on Thursday, three hours and forty-two minutes before kickoff at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The club used its own words for both halves. "The following player has been placed on the Injured Reserve List: DL Alfred Collins." Then: "The following players have been activated from the team's practice squad (standard elevations): WR KhaDarel Hodge, DL Ogbo Okoronkwo." Both elevated men go back to the practice squad when the game ends.

Collins tore a patellar tendon at a Melbourne practice this week, and Kyle Shanahan said his season is over. What Thursday afternoon produced was a roster spot. On the club's roster page at 2:53 p.m. Pacific, San Francisco had not spent it on a defensive tackle, or on anybody else.

What is left at right defensive tackle#

The club's depth chart on its website is stamped September 8, labelled unofficial, and puts four players at the two defensive tackle positions. Osa Odighizuwa, 280 pounds, is first on the left and C.J. West, 316 pounds, is second. Collins is still listed first on the right. Gracen Halton, a rookie at 293 pounds, is second there, and James Thompson Jr., an undrafted rookie at 308, is third.

Of those three men on the right, one is on injured reserve, one spent the week Questionable, and one is Gracen Halton.

Thompson is the one who was Questionable, hamstring, and his was the only game designation San Francisco issued this week. He did not practise at all on the first Melbourne day and was limited on the two that followed, which is the movement that showed up on Wednesday's report. A Questionable tag is a probability the club has published rather than a decision it has made, and the club resolves it when the inactives go out.

They went out ninety minutes before kickoff. Read at 4:52 p.m. Pacific, San Francisco's list runs six names, and it is quarterback Kurtis Rourke, cornerback Ephesians Prysock, running back Jordan James, receiver Jordan Watkins, linebacker Tatum Bethune and offensive tackle Enrique Cruz. No defensive lineman is on it. Thompson dresses.

So the club goes into the opener with all four of the men its own chart lists inside, minus the one it lost. Odighizuwa and West on the left. Halton and Thompson on the right, both rookies, one of them undrafted, at the position San Francisco had a starter at on Tuesday.

Halton is the one nobody has flagged. He was limited with an ankle earlier in the week, and the participation report the club distributed at 12:23 a.m. Pacific on Thursday has him at full participation for the last Melbourne session. The table on the club's own injury-report page tells it differently. Read at 2:51 p.m. Pacific, that table still lists Halton as limited on both of the two practice days it carries a value for, and the injury column beside his name is blank. The report the club hands out and the page the club publishes are not the same document, and the report is the one with a body part next to every name.

The practice squad has bigger men on it#

San Francisco keeps three defensive linemen on its practice squad: Vincent Anthony Jr. at 260 pounds, Kevin Givens at 285 and Sebastian Valdez at 301. Okoronkwo, the one who got the call, is listed at 253.

Givens has been through this door before. On August 5 the 49ers signed Hodge and Okoronkwo to one-year deals and waived Givens to make the room, per the club's own transaction log. Givens came back to the practice squad on September 1. Five weeks on, the same two names came up for the opener and his did not.

The elevation door does not stay open forever, either. A standard elevation returns the player to the practice squad after the game and a club may use one on the same player three times in a season. Three games is not a plan for a season; it is a way of not deciding yet.

The count#

Counted name by name in a browser at 2:53 p.m. Pacific, the roster page carries 54 players on Active, 12 on Reserve/Injured, two on Reserve/Physically Unable to Perform and 15 on the practice squad. Two of the 54 are Hodge and Okoronkwo, and they are there for one game. That is 52 players signed to a roster allowed to hold 53, with a spot open and a starting defensive tackle gone for the year.

Eight of the 54 are defensive linemen: Nick Bosa, Gracen Halton, Romello Height, Khalid Kareem, Osa Odighizuwa, James Thompson Jr., C.J. West and Keion White, plus Okoronkwo for the night. Four of the eight play inside.

The club's transaction log, read at 2:54 p.m., still ends on September 5 with the long-snapper promotion. None of Thursday's three moves has reached it.

Collins is listed at 332 pounds, and nobody on San Francisco's roster is heavier. The heaviest defensive lineman left is C.J. West, at 316.

Sources: 49ers.com roster page, depth chart, injury report and transaction log, read Thursday afternoon Pacific. The club's own roster-move release, September 10, 1:53 p.m. Pacific. The club's Week 1 participation report, September 10, 12:23 a.m. Pacific, Brooke Evans. Week 1 inactive lists, read 4:52 p.m. Pacific; David Bonilla, 49ers Webzone, and Pro Football Talk. David Bonilla and the transcript desk, 49ers Webzone.