Practice Notebook

San Francisco will sign a kicker on Saturday, and it has not worked one out

Eddy Piñeiro missed a third straight practice on Friday with an illness and is questionable for the home opener. He is the only kicker on the roster. Kyle Shanahan said two candidates are under consideration and would not name either one.

SK
Sam KezarSep 18, 20264 min read
Every call on this site goes on a public ledger and gets graded. The misses stay up.
Eddy Piñeiro photographed from the chest up against a plain white background, smiling into the camera, short dark hair, wearing a red 49ers jersey with white and red striped sleeve trim and the NFL shield at the collar. A posed league headshot, not football action.

Eddy Piñeiro did not practise on Friday. He did not practise on Wednesday or Thursday either, and the 49ers listed him questionable for Sunday's home opener against Miami.

San Francisco has nobody else who kicks. The club's own roster page at 2:49pm on Friday carried one kicker on the active roster and no kicker anywhere else: not on the practice squad, not on either reserve list.

Kyle Shanahan, speaking to reporters after Friday's practice, said the club will bring one in. Asked whether he knew who it would be, he said: "I don't. There's two guys we're deciding on. I'm not sure which one." The words are off the transcript the club's own communications staff put out after the session.

David Bonilla of 49ers Webzone reported the same afternoon that the signing goes to the practice squad on Saturday. A practice-squad kicker reaches Sunday's field by standard elevation, which is the route San Francisco used for KhaDarel Hodge and Ogbo Okoronkwo before the Melbourne game on September 10.

The club has not worked out a kicker.

Maiocco reported Friday that through that day the 49ers had not brought a kicker in to try out. The five men San Francisco did work out this week were tight ends Lawrence Cager, Tanner Conner and Jack Stoll, and defensive tackles Daniel Ekuale and Larry Ogunjobi, off the NFL transaction report by way of Bonilla on September 15. The club signed Stoll to the practice squad the following day.

Shanahan, on when the illness started: "He's missed Wednesday, Thursday, and today. I don't know if it came on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, but he's missed the whole week because of it."

What the club would be replacing, off the official game book.

Piñeiro went 2 for 3 on field goals in Melbourne. He made 20 and he made 56. His 52-yard attempt in the fourth quarter hit the right upright. He was 3 for 3 on extra points and he kicked off six times, and his nine points are a third of a 27-7 win.

He also played 12 of San Francisco's 20 special-teams snaps, which is more than Jon Weeks or Corliss Waitman, who played eight apiece. Weeks snapped and Waitman held on all three field-goal attempts. Neither one is on the injury report.

Kaelon Black is the other questionable.

Black was limited on Thursday with a groin, and limited again on Friday. Maiocco had him on the field for the start of Friday's session. Shanahan said on Thursday that the club was being careful: "I think we're just being smart with him. He was a little tight today." Asked on Friday how optimistic he was that the rookie plays, Shanahan said, "A questionable amount of optimism," and the room laughed.

Black played 28 of 65 offensive snaps in Melbourne, second among running backs behind Christian McCaffrey's 36. Separately, the club listed him with an adductor injury in August and had him out from Day 6 of training camp until Day 14 on August 18, per its own camp report. Two problems in the same region six weeks apart. Somebody put exactly that to Shanahan on Friday, and he did not join them up: asked whether it was the same groin injury Black had dealt with earlier in the season, he said, "I didn't ask him."

If Black cannot play, the active roster holds one other healthy running back. Jordan James was on the Not Active list in Melbourne, per page one of the league's game book, and took no snaps. Sincere McCormick is on the practice squad.

Stribling is the only 49er ruled out, and he is still on the active roster.

De'Zhaun Stribling had ankle surgery on Wednesday, Maiocco reported, and Shanahan put the recovery at about ten weeks. He has not practised this week.

He is also still on the club's own Active table, read at 2:49pm on Friday, a third straight day, and the newest entry on the club's transaction log is still September 16. Kyle Posey of Niners Nation wrote Friday that until the injured-reserve move is filed the club has to declare him out, and that the move is expected Saturday.

Nine men practised in full.

Twelve names are on the report and only three carry a designation. Nick Bosa is the one who moved across the week: he did not participate Wednesday under a rested-player note that also lists a knee, was limited Thursday, and was full on Friday with no game status. Dre Greenlaw, McCaffrey and Trent Williams, rested alongside him Wednesday, have been full both days since.

Kyle Juszczyk with a finger, George Kittle with an Achilles and Keion White with a back were limited on Wednesday and limited again on Thursday. All three were full on Friday. Khalid Kareem and Upton Stout were full as well.

Miami filed three.

The Dolphins ruled out linebackers Ronnie Harrison, hamstring, and Chop Robinson, concussion. Robinson was limited on Wednesday and did not practise on Thursday or Friday. Long snapper Tucker Addington is questionable with a shoulder.

San Francisco has told everybody what Saturday holds. It has named nobody in it.

Sources: the San Francisco 49ers' own post-practice transcript of Kyle Shanahan, provided by the club's communications staff, September 18; 49ers.com roster page, transaction log and Week 2 injury report, all read Friday, September 18; the NFL's official Week 1 game book; David Bonilla, 49ers Webzone, September 15 and September 18; Matt Maiocco, NBC Sports Bay Area, September 18; Kyle Posey, Niners Nation, September 18; the 49ers' own 2026 training camp Day 14 report, August 18.

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