Forty Niners Forever

Well, Kittle and Purdy ain’t coming back this weekend. But they did open Malik Mustapha’s practice window, so he may be back soon. But more defensive bad news is that Yetur Gross-Matos is out with a bad hammy for a couple games, and Khalia Davis is out with hand surgery. Not sure on that timeline either.

Not sure how this team can win without SOME of their injured players returning, but onward we go to Tampa Bay for the dreaded east coast morning game. mac Jones stock sure rose that last game as he overcame shitty pass blocking and got hit repeatedly and was not rewarded with roughing the passer on a couple pretty obvious penalties.

We of course barely get close enough to any QBs to even draw a roughing call, so Saleh has to once again dip into his majic bag and come up with ways to keep TB off the field. His unit did give up 456 yards to the Rams (in only 26 mins of possession), but made the one necessary stop on 4th and 1. We DID get a pick by Upton but it was negated by a horseshit Vinovich PI call. One of many bullshit calls by him.

The offense did a great job of keeping the ball from the Rams offense, but (stop me if you’ve heard this before) the fucking offense sputtered YET AGAIN in 1st and goal situations.

The first 2 drives saw the 49ers:

• Throw on 1st and goal – Result – TD
• Throw on 2nd down play-action to CMC in the flat – Result – TD

Since those plays worked so well, Shanahan never went back to them and instead we ended up kicking FOUR field goals the rest of the way. Genious indeed. So fucking tired of this. All our games will be like this if Shanahan continues to play football like fucking Jim Harbaugh used to.

And that is to play conservative until forced to open up the playbook, or grind the game down to the point of playing that last possession for the win. I loved Walsh’s philosophy of get way ahead and keep up the pressure and score 35 on ’em.

It’s nice to have an extra few days after the stirring victory over the Rams, but as we all know, there’s no rest in the NFL. Till the bye. Which is week 14. In other words, the 12th of never. Not soon anyway. I don’t even want to post the IR/Injury/Doubtful list as it is huge.

But based on the most recent updates (as of October 6, 2025), here’s the San Francisco 49ers injury report (eeeeek): 

Injured Reserve (IR)

• Nick Bosa (DE): Torn ACL, out for the season.
• George Kittle (TE): Hamstring strain, likely out until Week 7.
• Ben Bartch (OG): Ankle injury.
• Spencer Burford (OL): Knee injury.
• Kevin Givens (DL): Pectoral injury.
• Jacob Cowing (WR): Hamstring injury.
• Trent Taylor (WR): Undisclosed injury.
• Jakob Robinson (CB): Forearm injury.
• Tre Tomlinson (CB): Undisclosed injury.
• Patrick Taylor Jr. (RB): Shoulder injury.
• Tarron Jackson (DE): Undisclosed injury.
• Lucas Krull (TE): Foot, Eligible to return Week 9.
• Ben Bartch (T): Ankle, Placed on IR September 17.
• Kalia Davis (DT): Hand, Requires surgery.
• Robert Beal Jr. (DE): Ankle. 

Physically Unable to Perform (PUP)

• Brandon Aiyuk (WR): Knee, reportedly targeting a Week 6 return.
• Malik Mustapha (S): Knee (ACL), Practice window could open soon. 

Doubtful for Week 6

• Yetur Gross-Matos (DE): Hamstring injury, likely to miss some time. 

Questionable for Week 6

• Alfred Collins (DT): Knee sprain.
• C.J. West (DT): Thumb injury.
• Upton Stout (CB): Ankle injury, not a high ankle sprain. 

Out for Week 6

• Brock Purdy (QB): Toe injury, week-to-week.
• Jauan Jennings (WR): Ankle and Shoulder.
• Ricky Pearsall (WR): Knee.
• Jordan Watkins (WR): Calf. 

Other Notes

• Mac Jones started at quarterback in Week 5 due to Purdy’s injury.
• George Kittle (TE) is expected to return around Week 7.
• Malik Mustapha (S) is nearing a return from ACL injury and his practice window could open as early as this week.

Mad props to 12th Man for travelling to Levi’s South and bringing home a gut-wrenching hard-fought victory over the Rams last night. Mac Jones, wounded, cramping, and shovelling bananas down his gullet all night, managed to will the 49ers to a win without any starting WRs, TEs, or run game.

The defense gave up 450 yards, but made the last crucial stop in OT on 4th and one from the 12 yard line. Very reminiscent of Pete Carroll NOT going with the run in Seattle’s Super Bowl loss, as Matt Stafford and co amassed 378 in the air, and only 78 on the ground. McVay even fell on his sword after the game calling it “a shit call”.

Heroes all over the place. Amazingly, Kendrick Bourne overcame his terrible game last week to go for 10 and 142 as he gashed the Rams secondary all over the place. The one drop did kill a drive however. Recent practice squad grad Trevis Gipson recovered a botched pitch by Blake Corum to thwart a deep drive by LA, and Alfred Collins had a strip/recovery on Kyren Williams on the one yard line to kill an LA drive late in the game.

CMC had 139 yards from scrimmage, mainly on 8 catches for 82 yards (and 22 carried for 57 yards [eeeek, 2.6 per]), and Bournse of course, but Jones spread the ball out to 7 different guys. Notably, Jake Tonges with 7/41 yards and (GASP!) a TD pass on 1st and goal.

Still troubled by the lack of a running game, and the red zone badness. Shanny mixed things up on those first 2 drives, and then went back to bland bullshit fails on the next 4 red zone appearances, nearly getting Jones killed on yet another obvious 3rd down pass play on 3rd and goal.

And, after the Ram goal line fumble, Shanny went WAY conservative. 1st or 2nd down BEG for play action but instead we burned 8 seconds off the clock and allowed LA to time the score. We didn’t even try any kind of misdirection runs.

Hey 12th, did you take any pics?

From a preseason that started with a raft of injuries has continued on to be a maddening trent with this team. 4 games into 2025 and we are at the top of this list. The preseason saw

• 2024: #1 most injured
• 2023: #29 most injured
• 2022: #9 most injured
• 2021: #3 most injured
• 2020: #1 most injured
• 2019: #6 most injured
• 2018: #4 most injured

The outlier of course was 2023 when we went to the Super Bowl and yeah, you know. So, what looks like a pretty solid start to the season has devolved into a giant clusterfuck of injuries and replacement guys. Our once-full WR room is down to Scantling, Robinson, Moore, and Kendrick fucking Bourne, whose drop led to the punt return TD.

The TEs are doing OK, minus the fumble last week. Derp.

The defense of course lost Nick Bosa for the season. So, our pass rush, while not spectacular, WAS getting a lot of pressures and hurries. Last week, not so much. Saleh has his work cut out for him to get Stafford off his marks and to keep LA off the scoreboard.

Yeah, I don’t know. The offensive line isn’t blocking well, the pass pro is iffy at best, and LA’s pass rush is one of the best, the pass defense is not getting ANY turnovers, pass coverage is spotty at best, and the run defense is shakey.

But every time I think this team is gonna smoke a shitty team like the Jags, they suck. When I think they will suck, they pull out a satisfying win.

Hah! 31-27 Niners.

This crack medical staff has yet again done wonders. Purdy got through the game but his toe is hurt again, so all signs point to Mac Jones gets the start. At this point it might be a good thing.

But, due to their ineptitude, Purdy likely sits for another game or two as he re-heals his re-aggravated toe. A fairly strong case can be made for giving Jones the start last Sunday as it was a non-division non-conference game, and isn’t nearly as important as the Thursday night Rams game, but alas, here we sit, broken QBed.

The following are questionable:

• Jennings
• Pearsall
• Purdy (out)
• West
• Green
• Winters
• M Williams
• Gross-Matos
• Beal

Sweet. We are losing the battle on both sides of the line. No run blocking to speak of and no pressure on defense. How this shakes out vs the Rams looks to be scary at best. Shanny has a way of fucking with McVay, but with this many guys out, it’ll be hard. No idea when these guys will be healthy. As Shannon Sharpe said, you don’t get healthier as the season goes on.

So, Kittle, Purdy, Jennings, and T Williams, all the guys that got their big paydays are either hurting or out. We are counting on rookies and 2nd-3rd stringers to win going forward.

I guess our offensive genius, who’s 29th in red zone effectiveness, will have to do something about this moribund offense. And who knows? Maybe we get a quarterback controversy out of this if Mac can pull out a road win.

Wow. Well, without Nick Bosa, our defense sure looks like last year’s version of not being able to stop the run or the pass. Our special teams looked like last year’s, giving up a punt return for a touchdown. And the offense looked like last year’s stalling on the goal line twice, shitty run blocking, forcing passes, and turning the ball over 4 times. All this led to a loss to the nearly-as-inept-as-we-were Jacksonville Jaguars. Fuck me.

Both teams have numerous foot injuries from shooting themselves repeatedly in the feet. Our WR corps is wiped out. Our defense got NO pressures on Lawrence. Zero. Game 11 without an interception. 0-4 in the turnover category, and we were still in the game because of a tone of holding calls on Jax, dumb play calls, Lawrence running OB on his own while trying to run the clock out, and a bunch of other things.

And in one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, the refs gave Jacksonville an extra down when Shanahan (he says) declined a 2nd down holding call on Jax near their goal line. Instead of 3rd and 12, it was 2nd and 16. Despite calling a time out and discussing it with the refs, they said sorry, Jax gets their extra play despite declining it.

The play got 0 yards, but 3rd down and 16 of course they converted. Mainly because there was absolutely no pressure on Lawrence. We didn’t show much in the way of blitzes or anything, and Jax’s O line ran roughshod over our defense to the tune of 151 on the ground.

Purdy looked terrible overthrowing shit and forcing the ball to CMC. 3 turnovers for the future of the franchise as he looked rusty and out of sync. Guess they should have waited till Thursday to give him the green light. I don’t think Mac Jones would have done this badly.

Not sure what to make of this game other than to hope they just all had a bad day. This loss, while not a division or even conference loss, sure make the Thursday night game hugely important.

In the immortal words of the Angels, my boyfriend’s back and there’s gonna be trouble.

Brock Purdy is officially off the injured list! Glad there’s no travel this weekend, so that isn’t an issue. And even the Rams game is only a quick jaunt to Levi’s south. here’s to hoping that we have enough weapons at our disposal to take care of Jacksonville.

Say what you will about them, and I don’t know much about their defense, but they are up near the top in points allowed at 17 per game. But the 2 teams they’ve beaten are winless Houston and 1-win Carolina. Their loss was to the Browning led Bengals. Very telling is their +5 turnover ratio. But Trev is looking pretty pedestrian these days.

We on the other hand are playing down to the level of our opponents so far at -1. Purdy of course owns 2 of those turnovers in that Seattle game. Mac Jones has done a very good job keeping the course of Good Ship Niner pointed in the right direction, but man we need to throttle someone and get the starters out early for the Rams game. We cannot have another nail-biter game. It just leads to more problems.

More good news is Demarcus Robinson is returning after serving his DUI suspension. He looked in sync in the preseason, and we need him out there with Jennings still questionable. And I’d love to get the workload off of CMC’s shoulders for fear of him hitting the hurt list. Give Robinson more touches. And ease some work off of Ricky Pearsall’s shoulders as well. He’s questionable with a knee problem, but I’m pretty sure he’s gonna go.

Unreal how bad this season ha started despite our 3-0 record. The latest hit of course is the loss of Nick Bosa for the rest of the year with a torn ACL. For good or bad, it is not the same knee that wiped out his 2020 season, but the result is another lost season for the defensive ROY in 2019 and defensive POY in 2022.

Purdy is limited in practice but he was last week as well, so there’s no certainty that he’s gonna play this Sunday. Ricky Pearsall is now on the list with a knee problem, Jennings remains limited, Kittle has at least one more week getting his hammy right, on and on.

The following guys are not practicing today:

WR Jordan Watkins (calf)
WR Ricky Pearsall (knee)
WR Jauan Jennings (ankle, shoulder)
DT CJ West (thumb)
LT Trent Williams (rest)
RB Christian McCaffrey (rest)
DE Yetur Gross-Matos (knee)
DE Nick Bosa (knee)

The silver lining at least is that this isn’t a division or even a conference game. But the more wins we stack now, the better shot we have at staying in contention while half the roster tries to get healthy.

The big thing now is, what to do about Bosa? He’s on the third year of his 5-year extension signed in 2023. Gonna be a wait-and-see thing, but he’s signed through 2027. All the talk is about replacing him, but I don;t think the front office is going to go wild. Trey Hendrickson sounds like a great fit. But as we all know, he’d be a rental. How much would we give up for a guys like him? It would be a pretty big haul for Cincy, and we would have to pick between Bosa and Hendrickson, a guy 3 years older, but with 3 missed games in his career compared to 30 for Bosa.

I could see the team hedging their bet for now as they see how Huff increases his workload, Mykell Williams does the same, and Okuayinonu/Gross-Matos rotate in and out to spell them.

The trade deadline is 11/4, after game 9 of the season. The tougher games are the Rams and Tampa, but as we know, anyone can do anything. I’d hope 6-3 to be the low water mark and maybe time to think about making a move. But if we are 7-2 I’d think they may poach a promising young player from someone’s practice squad or should they go after a guy like Carl Granderson, who played pretty well vs them in NO?

Well, Bosa was right when he gave the thumbs down on his injury status walking to the tent. He is out for the year with a torn ACL.

Mac Jones gutted out a reoccurring knee injury and led the Niners to the game-winning FG as time ran out.

He’s day-to-day.

Purdy is day-to-day with his toe.

Mykel Williams is day-to-day with a wrist injury.

Renardo Green is day-to-day with a neck injury.

CJ West had surgery for a broken thumb, but he can possible play this weekend with a cast.

Jennings is day-to-day with a his ankle and shoulder injury that kept him out of this last game.

Kittle has one more game to hopefully come off the IR for his hammy.

BA? Who knows?

Purdy may be ready to come back for the Rams game on fucking Thursday night Jacksonville game next Sunday. Right. Thank God we have a short week to deal with all these injuries. Fuck. At least we are at home.

The good news is, we’ve won more division games in 3 weeks than we did all last year. The bad news is of course injuries. After the offense has been waylaid, the D suffers a huge blow with Bosa.

Next man up and all that shit, but really, Huff and Okuayinonu (and Saleh) have to scheme our way to get pressure on opposing QBs. Especially Matthew Stafford. next guy up for the Ram game.

As far as the game went, the run D is forming up pretty well. Upton Stout had a game saving breakup of a pass. The D played OK and got the laate stops that they had to to give the offense the chance for the game-winning FG. AZ helped with some crucial drops, but we aren’t getting to the QB enough and that’s is not gonna be helped by Bosa’s absence.

The run D is also gonna have to be big in this game. Travis Etienne is averaging 90 ypg, and their O is averaging 141 per game (5th in the league) so they have to be stout against the run to take this one.

Saleh has his work cut out for him with pressure, and at least Stafford is not very mobile Trevor Lawrence has only been sacked 3 times, but his numbers pretty much suck. 4 picks and 4 TDs and a woeful 55.3% completion percentage good enough for 33rd in the league. The hope is Saleh decides to bring the pressure with blitzes, stunts, and whatever else we can come up with to force more mistakes.

And, as much shit as I give Shanahan for his play calling, he finally ran play action inside the 10. I’ve only been saying that for 5 years now, He royally fucked up the previous drive by not being able to punch it in from 2nd and goal in the 1, but the TD drive and subsequent drive to win the game was solid and he worked the clock very effectively. So, yeah you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Jim Fahnhorst, 49er linebacker for 7 seasons, and three Super Bowls (XIX, XXIII, XIV), passed away at 66. Oddly enough, his older brother Keith, mainstay on the 49ers offensive line for 14 years, and 2 Super Bowl wins (XVI, and XIX), also passed away at 66 in 2018. Cool they got to share Super Bowl victory XIX in Palo Alto. Keith of course came in during the dark days of 1974.

RIP, Jim.

In game news, the Cardinals are working through injuries to four of the defensive backs. Cornerbacks Garrett Williams, LJ Collier, Max Melton, and Will Johnson are all iffy for Sunday’s game. This would definitely give Kyle something to think about for this game.

Kyle of course is playing the Purdy thing close to the vest. Lynch has even gone on to say that Mac Jones could get the start with Purdy being the #2. Available to come is and straighten shit out of it comes to that.

That seems like a whole lot of unnecessary bullshit. If Purdy is ready, play him. But what do I know? Jennings and his ankle, Juice with his concussion are both questionable. Bartch is (surprise!) on the IR. Shame he can’t stay healthy, but Connor Colby looked good in his stead.