COURTESY OF SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS MEDIA RELATIONS DEPARTMENT
I know there’s a lot of injuries to get to, but can we just start with what’s the latest with DL Nick Bosa? Is it more than routine maintenance? How is WR Brandon Aiyuk’s hamstring?
“With Nick, he complained on soreness in his legs a couple of days ago, so we weren’t worried about at all. So, we just wanted to give him a day off. That’s why I said it was a maintenance day, but two days later, when the soreness was worse without going, we got a little worried. Sent him to get an MRI and found out there was a little more there. What did we end up calling it? Yeah, so it was a muscle strain. He’ll end being week-to-week now. I’m glad we ended up getting that MRI because there was more to it. He was about to go out and practice through it because he didn’t think it was much. Fortunately, got that and we were able to prevent him from hurting it worse. And then Aiyuk, we got that back yesterday. With what we thought at first, considered it good news. It ended up just being a mild strain, but he’ll be week-to-week also with his hamstring.”
What about DL Dee Ford?
“Dee Ford had calf irritation. He’s had it the last couple of days. Went through it two days ago and then yesterday he came out for warmups and it was just a little bit too tight. So, we didn’t want to risk it two days ago. Then we gave him today off for it also. So, he’s day-to-day with it. Hopefully he’ll be back soon.”
Do you expect WR Deebo Samuel back anytime during this week’s set of practices or what’s his timetable on when you expect him to practice?
“We’re still hoping he can get back for Week One. So, no, I don’t expect him back this week. We’re still hoping on Week One, but not sure.”
QB Jimmy Garoppolo was in there at the end for 12 plays in a row. Is that something you’re just trying to get him up for more snaps or anything in particular with that kind of increased reps?
“Yeah, it’s more just sometimes it’s tough for the quarterbacks because we’ve got to take down the reps a lot for our team. Just trying to get them through practice and some of the positions we’re short at. Our quarterbacks, they don’t have to run quite as much and they definitely aren’t hitting anyone in each play. So, when you take down the reps for the whole team, it ends up helping the team, but hurting the quarterback. He stole [QB] C.J. [Beathard] and [QB] Nick’s [Mullens] reps there in the red zone today. So, I think he ended up getting like six extra because of it.”
The other day, some of the guys said you guys watched Super Bowl film together for the first time. OL Trent Williams said he could feel the cringing in the room. Can you just talk a little bit about that experience and what you think they got out of it?
“Yeah, it wasn’t just the Super Bowl game. It was more, I was just showing them stuff on “got to have it” situations where if you don’t make this play on offense or defense, the game’s over. We try to resemble that in practice and put it through where we had ten plays that were kind of like that. I just brought it up after because we didn’t do that great in those periods. So, I brought up clips throughout the year on what “got to have it” situations are. It wasn’t just the Super Bowl. Went throughout the whole year and showed why you win games and why you lose games. A number of clips came up in the Super Bowl and those are a lot harder to watch because everyone knows how that ended, but there are some good ones and bad ones on both ways that went throughout the year. We were pretty good in those situations throughout the year, but in the three games that we lost, you can see we didn’t make those plays.”
What did you see out of TE Jordan Reed today? It looked like he had a pretty good first team practice out there, especially in one-on-ones.
“Yeah, it was his first time out there in a while. He’s been doing really good on the side. We wanted to ease him back in today. We just gave him a couple of routes in one-on-one. Gave him a couple of plays in team. Not too much. It was more just to get him out there. When you’re not out for a while, you kind of have to go out and get your first practice in, take that monkey off your back. Hopefully he accomplished that today from his standpoint mentally, but physically, I thought he looked real good.”
Sorry for asking another injury question. RB Raheem Mostert, what’s his status?
“No, that was just giving him a vet day. Sometimes, especially with some of our vets here, I try not to have those guys go four days in a row. It is very hard with the situation of not having the amount of players and what we have to get in before the 13th. Raheem definitely earned that and we just rested him today.”
I’m sure you were kind of anticipating this, but the club announced today that there would be no fans at least for the first game of the season. I’m just curious as to your perspective on what kind of challenge that’ll present, what you think it’ll be like and if there’s been any resolution on what kind of noise there’s going to be piped it?
“It’s disappointing, but I also understand it. There’s a lot of adjustments that everyone’s got to make and how the world is right now. So, I totally understand it, but it’s not going to be that fun. We love having the fans in there. They pump you up. You hear the noise, whether you’re watching on TV or in there in person. It’s a little unusual for me watching basketball and baseball right now, just seeing how it is without fans out there. So, we’ll have to go through it, too, just like the other sports have. Hopefully it won’t last. Hopefully, eventually, we’ll be able to get our fans in there, but it’s a challenge everyone’s dealing with. I can sit and think about it a lot, but I’m ready to see how it ends up being different and what the pluses and minuses are to it and being ready to adapt and change and we’ll figure that out.”
I was wondering, when you’re working out receivers, what’s a trait that you’re looking for because it seems like the four guys that you brought in today all offer something different?
“You just want to bring in guys that, when you have guys go down, you always want to bring in a person who can go out there and line up. Who can, from a mental standpoint, can learn it in a quick amount of time so we can throw them in there and so he can take some reps from the other guys. Also, when you’re going to do that with someone, you also want someone capable of making the team. When it’s a receiver, you can make it any way possible. You just want some NFL traits. Whatever our guys are looking for, whether it’s quickness, size, hands, there’s all different ways that you can use guys. I always just hope we bring in what I call NFL players. Guys who have the ability to play in this league, guys have the ability to make a team and then you’d find out what they do best and you see if that’s good enough to get on the field.”
WR Tavon Austin is becoming a little more noticeable. Is that a function of him just getting more comfortable with the offense, getting more snaps, a little bit everything?
“Yeah, I think both. He came in late, so he’s behind the eight ball at first with all the different opportunities and places you can move in our offense. The more he learns it, the more he can get thrown in there at all three of the positions. When you have injuries and stuff, that does give you more opportunities at all three spots instead of just one. I think he’s getting a lot better at that with more reps, just like all of them are, the more reps that they get. Tavon is a very talented player who moves very well. I think he gets better and better each day for us.”
Are you guys planning any practices in the stadium? I know some teams are doing that just to get guys acclimated to game day situation.
“Yeah. I don’t even know what day it is, but we go in four-day increments. So, today was our first day back, so the fourth practices this week. Friday we’ll be in the stadium. I don’t expect it to be much different, but it gives all our guys a chance to go through the process of what you do in preseason. Our video guys have the tablets out there and stuff like that just to make sure they’re working all the pictures that we use and just stuff that kind of us coaches take a little for granted. We just expect it to work when we get out there, but there’s a lot of trial and errors that you go through in the preseason game that we won’t be as patient for Week One. It gives those guys a chance to do that and hopefully we’ll have some clarity with the noise and stuff and we can experiment with how we want to do that, too.”
With free agent S Earl Thomas being available, was there interest on your part? How happy are you with the safeties you have on your roster currently?
“I’m real happy with our safeties and no. Nothing against Earl, but there wasn’t interest just because we have our team. We have the guys that we want at our spot and this is how we planned it. We’ve got some good competition there, too, with the guys that have been behind them. We’re excited about our group.”
Last week when talking about Aiyuk, you mentioned how important it was for him to get all of these reps. Now, obviously hitting a speed bump here. What’s your frustration level, just given the fact that now Aiyuk and Deebo are missing these practice reps and what would be your message to Aiyuk in terms of how to navigate these next few weeks while he deals with this injury?
“Yeah, you get frustrated a little bit when it happens, but it’s just happened too much to me that, over your career as a coach, that it’s just part of the game. You can’t sit there and dwell on it. You try to look at, was anything done wrong or anything like that? Not at all. Aiyuk’s been in great shape. He’s working his tail off out there and sometimes that stuff just happens while you’re going through a training camp. That has been the challenge, just this training camp not being quite as long. So, it doesn’t leave much room for error with that type of stuff, but it happened to Bosa last year. When you’ve got guys who come in prepared, that gives them a chance when they don’t get all these reps. If Aiyuk didn’t come in the way that he did come in, he’d be screwed now with an injury. That’s what’s been cool about him that he’s given himself a chance to overcome something like this. I think we got pretty good news with it because we thought at first it was a bad pull and it ended up just being a mild one. So, hopefully it’s only one, two weeks. When it is, we’ll give him some time to come back. But, he can’t check out while he’s rehabbing, which with how he’s been, I’m not worried about that. He’s going to stay into it mentally and stuff, but no matter how mentally you stay into it, when you hear in the huddle and you go out there full speed, it’s a little bit harder. Hopefully, he’ll get some time, probably about 10 days, hopefully, before we get back to Arizona and we’ll be able to catch him up then.”