The 49ers are at full strength for the NFC championship game.
The 49ers’ clean injury report didn’t change any through the weekend, and they’ll be at full strength for the NFC championship game. No surprises popped up on their list of inactives.
Here’s the seven inactive players for Sunday:
QB CJ Beathard
RB Jeff Wilson Jr.
CB Dontae Johnson
TE Daniel Helm
LB Azeez Al-Shaair
WR Jordan Matthews
DL Kevin Givens
Not seeing a key starter on the inactives list has to be a huge sigh of relief for the 49ers going into the biggest game of the year.
The key injury-related things to watch are defensive end Dee Ford and linebacker Kwon Alexander’s snap counts. Ford was a full participant in practice Friday after missing Wednesday and going limited Thursday. He played 22 very effective snaps against the Vikings.
Alexander played 54 percent of the snaps in the divisional round as the strong side linebacker. It’ll be interesting to see if his role expands against a Packers offense where the third linebacker spot won’t be on the field as much.
The 49ers had a clean sheet injury-wise during their win over the Vikings on Saturday.
The 49ers got out of the divisional round with wins on and off the field. San Francisco defeated the Minnesota Vikings 27-10 to move on to the NFC championship game, thanks in large part to their rejuvenated, healthy defense. Head coach Kyle Shanahan on Monday said the team stayed healthy through Saturday’s contest and should be good to go for the NFC championship Sunday at Levi’s Stadium.
There were a couple scares during the game that didn’t linger over the weekend. Defensive end Nick Bosa got the wind knocked out of him late in the game. He stayed on the ground and was attended to by trainers before rising and celebrating his sack of Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. Bosa stayed in the game and didn’t have any further issues arise.
Running back Raheem Mostert exited the game in the fourth quarter with a calf injury. Shanahan after the game called it a cramp, but said they’d look into it further. Again, nothing larger than some cramping came of that injury.
Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo appeared to roll his ankle early in the contest, which may have contributed some to his less-than-stellar performance. He was 11-for-19 for 131 yards and only threw six times in the second half.
“I found out because I was upset with him for being a little bit late to the next play, then I realized that he was hurting,” Shanahan said. “I was told after the game. But, he was fine. He was a little banged up on that play, but nothing after the game. It wore off and he’s good to go now.”
There was also an update on defensive end Dee Ford, who played 22 snaps in his first game since Week 14 when he aggravated a hamstring injury. Ford had a sack and didn’t have any additional issues with his leg.
“It should be the same deal for him this week,” Shanahan said. “No setbacks, so hopefully he will take a step forward. Regardless, he played at a high level for us and was very impactful when he was in there.”
Shanahan had similar news for linebacker Kwon Alexander, who made his return Saturday after tearing a pectoral in Week 9.
“I thought Kwon did a real good job,” he said. “I knew he was going to be fired up to get out there. I’m always nervous for guys when they are that excited to get out there and they haven’t played in a while. You knew he was going to run around and hit. He also did a good job of not making mistakes. He kept his poise on the field. You can feel his speed out there. I thought he made a number of plays on the screens and stuff and even when he didn’t, just making backs come to a complete stop and having to change their course where then the pursuit of the rest of our defense can get him.”
No news is good news for the 49ers at this point, and a healthy divisional round means they’ll be ready to go for the NFC championship as long as nothing crops up in practice during the week.
San Francisco is off Tuesday, and they’ll have their first injury report out after Wednesday’s practice.
The 49ers will have Dee Ford in the lineup along with Kwon Alexander and Jaquiski Tartt.
The 49ers will be the healthiest they’ve been since the start of the season when they host the Vikings on Saturday in the divisional playoffs.
Defensive end Dee Ford was questionable with a hamstring injury, but he is officially active for the first time since Week 14 when he re-aggravated the hamstring he hurt in Week 11.
Here are the players who won’t suit up for the 49ers in their playoff opener:
QB C.J. Beathard
RB Jeff Wilson
WR Jordan Matthews
TE Daniel Helm
DL Kevin Givens
LB Azeez Al-Shaair
CB Dontae Johnson
Givens is inactive after playing in Week 17 due to the re-signing of defensive tackle Earl Mitchell. The veteran lineman gives the 49ers additional depth along the interior.
Ford, along with Kwon Alexander and Jaquiski Tartt will all play and give the 49ers most of their starting defense back for the first time since Alexander went down with a torn pectoral in Week 9. Ford got hurt in Week 11, then Tartt went down in Week 13.
Their absences all coincided with a late-season skid by the 49ers defense. Getting them all back could be key in a 49ers’ victory.
Most notably, wide receiver Adam Thielen is active. He suffered an ankle injury in practice during the week, but went through a pregame workout and will go Saturday.
The San Francisco 49ers are celebrating the return of Kwon Alexander with a sizzling hype video.
Kwon Alexander is the heart and soul of the San Francisco 49ers’ defense. So, the team is thrilled to have him back for its playoff game with the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday. So happy, in fact, it unleashed a sizzling hype video.
Alexander was cleared a week earlier than expected after suffering a torn pec muscle on Halloween against the Arizona Cardinals.
Steve Wyche of the NFL Network reported Dee Ford will play vs. the Vikings on Saturday.
The 49ers will go into their divisional playoff game against the Vikings with a fully healthy slate of defenders according to Steve Wyche of the NFL Network.
Wyche reported Saturday morning before the game that Ford, along with linebacker Kwon Alexander, would be used in San Francisco’s first playoff game since the 2013 season.
The 49ers didn’t express a lot of optimism during the week that Ford would play after he missed the final four games of the year with a hamstring injury. He was limited in practice all week and officially listed as ‘questionable’ on the team’s injury report.
Wyche said defensive coordinator Robert Saleh indicated Ford would only be used as a pass-rush specialist in passing situations. That should limit his snaps and allow him to be as effective as possible while ensuring he’s healthy for any additional playoff games the 49ers might play.
Alexander’s inclusion in Wyche’s report isn’t a huge surprise after the team activated him Friday off Injured Reserve. They likely would’ve kept him on IR if they had any doubts about his ability to give them snaps Saturday.
If Ford does play, it’s a huge plus for a 49ers pass rush that’s struggled without him. Numbers indicate his presence on the edge turned San Francisco’s good pass rush into an elite unit. They’ll need that Saturday and throughout the playoffs if they’re going to have success against the group of quarterbacks they’ll see en route to a championship.
Hype videos are normally hit and miss. They come and they go without a peep at times, but the really good ones can get you charged up.
And, let me tell you, the San Francisco 49ers dropped a good one here. They announced Kwon Alexander’s official return on Friday after he tore his pectoral and was placed on injured reserve back in November.
How’d they announce it? With a hype video featuring music from DaBaby along with a bunch of screaming, yelling and hitting.
Listen. I’m ready to run through a wall with this dude. I’m not even a 49ers fan and this video has me hype for his return.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar gives us some final statistical notes for Saturday’s slate of divisional playoff games.
With the divisional round of the playoffs ready to kick off, here are a few important statistical notes for Saturday’s games that could go a long way to deciding which teams advance to the conference championships.
Vikings at 49ers
(Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports)
This season, Kirk Cousins has been by far the NFL’s most prolific boot-action quarterback. This is a definite product of assistant head coach and offensive advisor Gary Kubiak, who has long worked heavy boot-action concepts into his offenses. Per Sports Info Solutions, Cousins has attempted 56 boot-action passes, completing 40 for 663 yards, an NFL-high seven touchdowns, and two interceptions. Jimmy Garoppolo hasn’t used boot-action quite as often, but maybe he should — he’s attempted 29 passes, completing 22 for 436 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions.
One other thing Cousins and Garoppolo have in common? They’ve thrown the most passes this season out of 21 personnel — two running backs, one tight end, and two receivers. Garoppolo has completed 80 of 109 passes out of 21 personnel for 1,055 yards, four touchdowns, and one interception. Cousins has completed 53 of 82 passes for 664 yards, six touchdowns, and one interception out of 21 personnel.
San Francisco has been limping along on defense over the last few weeks. With injuries taking pass-rusher Dee Ford, linebacker Kwon Alexander, and safety Jaquiski Tartt out of the lineup, the 49ers went from transcendent to normal in a big hurry.
In weeks 1-12, San Francisco allowed opposing quarterbacks to post a QBR of 72.50, and only the Patriots were better at 50.55. The 49ers allowed a Positive Play Rate (plays in which the Expected Points Added were above zero) of 37%, and only New England was better at 36%. Per Sports Info Solutions, the 49ers’ defense saved 188.5 points below the average, and opposing offenses had minus -140.3 EPA against them. Again, only the Patriots were better in either category.
No defense allowed fewer completions (198) or passing yards (1,854), and though there was a vulnerability in touchdowns allowed (11), matching the interception total with 11 seemed to make that problem go away. The 49ers were 10-1 after 12 weeks, their only loss in overtime to Seattle, and the defense was the biggest part of that success equation.
From Weeks 13-17, only the Redskins, Colts, and Dolphins allowed more passing touchdowns than San Francisco’s 12, which tied them with the Giants for third-worst in the NFL. The 49ers have just one interception in that time period, they’ve allowed an opposing QBR of 100.5, their Positive Play Rate allowed jumped to 49%, their EPA allowed shot up to 32.2 (second-worst in the league ahead of only the Lions), and they ended the season with a 3-2 record. The 49ers hope to have all three of those defensive starters ready for the playoffs, and that will be mandatory if Kyle Shanahan’s team is to live up to its early potential.
Speaking of pass defense, Vikings safety Anthony Harris is the only player in the NFL this season with seven interceptions and no touchdowns allowed. Garoppolo, who has struggled at times with safety reads throughout his career, had better be on the lookout for Harris all day.
Titans at Ravens
(Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports)
It will come as no surprise to anyone who’s watched Lamar Jackson this week that he’s the NFL’s most dynamic outside runner. This season, he’s averaged 8.9 yards per attempt on runs to the outside of the tackles, and he’s taken 69% of his 176 rushing attempts there. When running off-tackle, which he has done 24% of the time, he’s averaged 5.4 yards per carry, and when running inside, which he’s done just 7% of the time, he averages 4.9 yards per carry.
The relatively good news for the Titans is that they’ve been very good at limiting outside runs, ranking seventh in the NFL with a 4.4 yards per carry allowed. The relatively bad news for the Titans is that they’ve not seen an outside runner like Jackson.
One thing the Titans love to do to try and confuse quarterbacks post-snap is to spin one of their safeties into a two-deep look. The quarterback is under the impression that he’s facing single-high coverage, and all of a sudden, he’s not. Defensive coordinator Dean Pees will also spin a cornerback, such as Logan Ryan, into that position.
This season, against single-high coverage (Cover-1 and Cover-3), Jackson completed 142 of 225 passes for 1,827 yards, 17 touchdowns, and just three interceptions. Only Kirk Cousins had more touchdown passes against single-high coverage. Against two-high looks (Cover-2, Man Cover-2, Cover-4, and Cover-6), Jackson completed 79 of 116 passes for 890 yards, seven touchdowns, and one interception. So, it’s pick your poison against Jackson as a passer (which we don’t talk about nearly enough; the guy led the NFL in touchdown passes this season), and that complicates defensive efforts against Baltimore’s league-leading run game. But defensive disguise should help — a bit.
Baltimore’s defense loves to blitz — they led the league with a 54.9% blitz rate this season. But Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill has been unmoved by the blitz efforts of previous defenses. This season, Tannehill has completed 55 of 79 passes for 761 yards, six touchdowns, and one interception against the blitz.
Tennessee’s most disturbing trend — the one that they must turn around in this game if they are to win — is a serious backslide in run defense. Per NFL Research, in their first eight games, the Titans allowed 96.5 rushing yards per game, 3.9 yards per attempt, three rushing touchdowns, sixteen 10-yard rushing plays, and no 100-yard rushers. In their last nine games, including their wild-card win over the Patriots, the Titans have allowed 110.9 rushing yards per game, 4.2 yards per carry, 12 rushing touchdowns, twenty-five rushing plays of 10 yards or more, and two 100-yard rushers. It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Baltimore won’t take massive advantage of this weakness.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
Kwon Alexander’s surprise return came a week earlier than expected, and he will play against the Vikings.
The 49ers on Friday made Kwon Alexander’s return from a torn pectoral official when they activated him off Injured Reserve. In a corresponding move, they placed defensive lineman Kentavius Street on IR with a knee injury.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan announced during his Thursday press conference the team would activate their linebacker, but didn’t have word on a move to clear space on the 53-man roster.
Alexander’s return came earlier than anticipated on a couple levels. Typically a torn pectoral ends a player’s season regardless of any playoff run. However, there was some optimism that Alexander may return in the event of a deep playoff run after he went down with the injury during the team’s Week 9 win in Arizona.
Shanahan believed that was still the case until Alexander was cleared to start practicing during the team’s first-round playoff bye. His progress and the bye week allowed Alexander enough time to get cleared by the medical staff in time for the divisional round.
Now it’s up to the coaching staff to determine his playing time. His role hasn’t been specified, but it sounds like he won’t be back for 100 percent of the snaps. Still, getting their emotional leader back for the start of the postseason could be a huge boost to the 49ers’ front seven against a very talented Vikings offense.
For Street, this marks the second time this season and third time in his two-year career that he’s hit injured reserve. He missed all of last year with a torn ACL he suffered before the draft. Then the 49ers selected him in the fourth round and placed him on IR for the entire season.
He went on IR to start the 2019 season after a flare up in his injured knee, but returned in Week 15 against Atlanta and played a small defensive role in the final three games of the year. Street was a limited participant during practice in the week leading up to the divisional round. He was officially listed as questionable before going on season-ending IR.
Losing Street impacts the depth on an already thin 49ers defensive line, but getting Alexander back will be a significant gain for San Francisco’s defense.
Dee Ford is questionable, and Jaquiski Tartt isn’t on the injury report for the 49ers as they gear up to face the Vikings.
The 49ers’ official injury report for the divisional round vs. the Vikings came with plenty of good news.
Only two players, Dee Ford and Kentavius Street are even on the report, and both players are officially questionable. That was likely given the fact they were both limited in practice all week.
Perhaps the bigger factor is which players aren’t on the report. Strong safety Jaquiski Tartt is off the injury report after participating in full all week. He’s set to return vs. the Vikings.
Right guard Mike Person is also off the injury report after missing the final two games of the regular season with a neck injury. Daniel Brunskill started at that spot in his absence.
Kwon Alexander is not on the injury report because he’s still officially on Injured Reserve. Head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters after Thursday’s practice the team planned to activate Alexander, but there’s no word no a corresponding move on the 53-man roster.
Health has been an issue all season for the 49ers, but going into the playoffs with a mostly-healthy roster is as good as they can ask for in January.
Here’s the official status report for Saturday:
Questionable
DE Dee Ford (hamstring)
DL Kentavius Street (knee)
No news was good news Wednesday for the 49ers in their quest for health ahead of the divisional playoffs.
The 49ers on Tuesday had every member of their 53-man roster practicing for the first time all season. They maintained that course Wednesday, which is a positive sign for a team that’s dealt with major injuries to key players all season.
It looks like Dee Ford and Kwon Alexander are both on track to play, although Alexander remains on Injured Reserve and isn’t officially listed on the participation report. Setbacks of any kind would significantly derail their chances to get back for the divisional playoffs, so the fact they remained limited participants Wednesday is a positive sign.
Right guard Mike Person has missed the last two contests with a neck injury. He’s still limited, but could be in a position to play after getting last week off.
A full injury report for Saturday will come out Thursday, at which point we’ll get a better idea of each player’s status.
Here’s Wednesday’s participation report:
Limited participation
DE Dee Ford (quad, hamstring)
RG Mike Person (neck)
DL Kentavius Street (knee)
