One Of The Ninety Is Listed Two Different Ways

San Francisco signed defensive lineman Xavier Thomas to a one-year deal on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday, the day of the preseason opener, the club's own roster page and one of the two public contract databases disagreed about whether he is healthy.

The club's page, counted in a browser at 2:58 p.m. PT, carries Thomas among the 88 names on its Active table. He is listed at 6-2, defensive line, out of Clemson. The number column beside his name is empty. Spotrac, read at 3:00 p.m. PT, carries him on injured reserve instead, in a six-man group with Ricky Pearsall, Darrick Forrest, Andrew Farmer II, Mikail Kamara and Tanner McLachlan.

The club's transaction log offers nothing that would settle it. Its newest entry at a 3:02 p.m. reading was still Wednesday's, the six moves announced at 1:21 p.m., and no report of a subsequent move for Thomas surfaced anywhere Thursday afternoon. Two published versions, and they do not reconcile. Whether Thomas is hurt is not a question a roster page can answer, and nobody from this site has seen him.

The difference is not academic on this particular Thursday. Thomas joins a defensive line that lost K.J. Henry in the same Wednesday release, and Tennessee kicks off at 6 p.m. in a game the head coach has already emptied of its best players. "There won't be many starters playing," Kyle Shanahan said after Tuesday's joint practice with the Titans. A defensive lineman signed twenty-six hours before kickoff is exactly the kind of player a preseason opener exists to look at, assuming he is available to be looked at.

The count is 90, and it takes three numbers to get there#

The club's four roster tables, read at the same 2:58 p.m. count: 88 on Active, three on Active/Physically Unable to Perform, four on Reserve/Injured, one on Reserve/Left Squad.

Only the first two count against the offseason limit, which makes 91 names. San Francisco is at 90 rather than 91 because of Isaac Alarcon. The club was granted a roster exemption for the Mexican offensive lineman in April, and an international-pathway exemption keeps a player off the 90 for the whole offseason. It stops working at the cut to 53, at which point he counts like anybody else.

So: 88 plus three, less one. San Francisco walks into its first game at the limit exactly, which is what Wednesday's three in and three out was for.

That arithmetic is also what makes the Thomas question worth asking, because the two versions of him do not produce the same total. The active table counts against the 90 and Reserve/Injured does not. If the club's page is right, San Francisco goes into the opener at the limit with nothing to spend. If Spotrac is right, it goes in at 89, one under, with an open spot on the night the roster is supposed to be full.

The three on Active/PUP are Isaac Guerendo, George Kittle and Mykel Williams. They cannot practice and they cannot play, and they occupy three of the 90 anyway.

The injured list depends on which page you open#

The club counts four men on Reserve/Injured: Farmer, Forrest, Kamara and Pearsall. Both public books count six. The two extra names are not the same two.

OverTheCap, read at 2:54 p.m., carries Tanner McLachlan and K.J. Henry among its non-active charges. Spotrac carries McLachlan and Thomas. McLachlan is the common name, and he has his own version of the same question: the club waived him with an injury designation on July 31, and he has not appeared on any of the club's four tables since.

Henry is the fresher case and the more instructive one. He was waived with an injury designation Wednesday, fourteen days after he signed. A player waived that way who goes unclaimed reverts to his own club's injured reserve. As of Thursday afternoon he was on none of San Francisco's four tables: not Active, not Active/PUP, not Reserve/Injured, not Reserve/Left Squad. That is what the page says. What it means is a claim nobody has made in public yet.

Three men, no numbers#

Eli Apple, Xavier Thomas and Zamir White carry an empty number column on the club's roster page. All three signed Wednesday. Every other name on the Active table has a number beside it.

Apple has been a 49er before, twice. The most recent stint ended on August 2, when the club waived him, and he re-signed ten days later. White arrived because the running back room had four men hurt at once. In a game the starters are sitting out, the three men with the most to gain from the snaps are the three a viewer cannot look up.

What the board did#

Nothing. There was no practice Thursday; the club's schedule for the week lists a 6 p.m. game and no session. There was no transaction. No grade on the 53-man tracker moved, and no name crossed the cut line in either direction.

The projection still totals 52 against 53, and the missing man is still an offensive lineman: nine names inside against a keep of ten. The first thing on the calendar capable of producing interior line evidence starts at 6 p.m., which is the argument for watching a game whose starters are staying on the sideline.

Sources: 49ers.com roster page and transaction log, both counted in a browser August 13, 2:58 and 3:02 p.m. PT; Spotrac San Francisco 49ers 2026 financial summary, read 3:00 p.m. PT; OverTheCap San Francisco 49ers salary cap page, read 2:54 p.m. PT; the club's August 12 release announcing six roster moves; the club's practice and media schedule for the week, 49ers Webzone, published August 9; Shanahan on the starters, 49ers Webzone, August 12; Niners Wire, April 28, on the Alarcon exemption; Grab Some Pine 53-man tracker.