The 49ers have tweaked a familiar part of training camp, and offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak says the change is about the whole roster, not just one position group.
For years under Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco usually stacked practices three straight days. This camp opened differently. The team practiced Sunday and Monday, then held a “jog-thru” on Tuesday, went back on the field Wednesday and got Thursday off.
Asked whether the adjustment was aimed at keeping the wide receivers fresher after last summer’s injury issues - with Jauan Jennings, Jacob Cowing and Jordan Watkins all dealing with problems - Kubiak pushed back on the idea that this was a receiver-specific move.
“It’s definitely not just about the receivers. We’re never going to make an adjustment to benefit one position group.
It was a team thing. Just studying, talking to different people around the league and looking at different ways people do camp.
We just thought it was a smart adjustment for us to not be going three days in a row of practice.”
The new setup hasn’t magically solved the injury bug. The 49ers have already seen several players get banged up, including Ricky Pearsall, Jordan James and Malik Mustapha.
Still, Kubiak said the altered rhythm gives the team a cleaner way to distribute reps. Under the old three-day format, veterans often sat out the third practice to manage workload. Now, he said, everyone is out there more consistently.
“The other benefit of that was that everybody gets to practice every day. We have days when we were doing our traditional three-day block where a lot of vets would be missing that third day to kind of take the workload off of them.
The way we’re doing it now is everyone’s out there every day and we don’t have to compensate for a lower number in a practice, which is where sometimes you might get an injury.
When you’re low on receivers, one day you’re low on linemen or something, guys have to take more reps. So, we’re trying to avoid that as best we can by adding that jog-through day.
Yesterday was good. It was our first one and hopefully we get the results we want moving forward.”
There’s also a developmental angle here. More reps mean more chances for the coaching staff to sort through the younger players and the new faces on the roster.
San Francisco doesn’t need camp to tell it what Christian McCaffrey, Fred Warner or Trent Williams can do. Renardo Green is expected to be a starting cornerback.
But the evaluation gets more interesting when the staff looks at players like Jack Jones, Enrqiue Cruz Jr., Nick Martin and others who may be asked to step in at some point.
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