The 49ers made a roster move that had been building toward a tough conclusion: Brayden Willis is out, and Jon Weeks is in.
San Francisco waived the tight end on the NFL’s transaction wire to clear a spot for Weeks, who was elevated from the practice squad as the team’s long snapper. Along with that move, the 49ers officially signed Khalid Kareem and placed Sam Okuayinonu on Injured Reserve.
Willis’ exit makes sense only if you look at the bigger numbers game the 49ers were juggling. He’d been floating on and off the roster for a couple of seasons, and the odds of him getting through waivers felt better than they did for rookie undrafted free agent Bryson Eason. But the preseason tape from Eason was strong enough to suggest a developmental future, while Willis, despite a few eye-catching blocks, never really looked like someone who was going to give San Francisco consistent snaps down to down.
The 49ers even gave Willis a look on special teams during the preseason to see if that could carve out a role. It didn’t go anywhere. He logged 32 snaps without a solo tackle, and once Kyle Juszczyk was practicing and George Kittle was back, there wasn’t much path left for him to get on the field.
Roster reality also played a big part. The 49ers weren’t going to start cutting into the group of 2025 draft picks at defensive tackle, and that left Eason squeezed out. The team chose to keep James Thompson, the other undrafted free agent defensive tackle, instead, and Eason ended up losing the numbers battle.
For Willis, it’s a rough turn in a business that rarely gives players much breathing room. He’d just made the 16-hour trip to Australia, was preparing for Week 1, and had time to take it all in before the bad news landed less than a week before kickoff.
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