The San Francisco 49ers have already clinched the top seed in the NFC ahead of this week’s game against the Los Angeles Rams, meaning they have essentially nothing to play for this week. But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy decision to just sit all of their starters this week.
As Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan explained during a press conference, Shanahan explained that sometimes you do want to rest players, but that could end up actually hurting your team in the long run, so it is a balancing act.
“I think it can be tough,” Shanahan told reporters on Monday according to Pro Football Talk, “but it’s not just playing, it’s how much you practice and everything too. You’ve got to make sure that you prepare for games by practicing. We’ve got a game this week on Sunday. When you give guys the game off, practice changes too. That can end up hurting guys a lot and you end up just developing bad habits. I’ve seen it cost a lot of teams. Also, it does give some guys a chance to get healthy. When you do that and you sit people, then some of the names you guys mentioned [like Brock Purdy and Trent Williams], but then other people have got to double up and do a lot more because you only get two guys off a practice squad also. If you want to get more than two off practice squad, we’ve got to cut people on a roster and then we don’t get those guys, just to get those guys up. So, it always can end up hurting. You rest players and that sometimes gets more players injured. That’s all that stuff you’ve got to balance out and that’s why there’s not a clear-cut decision on anything. You’ve got to look at each individual, in each situation and play it out as the week goes.”
Niners running back Christian McCaffrey will not play this week as he continues to recover from a slight injury sustained last week. We’ll have to see what the team decides to do at the other positions.
It’s a good problem to have for the Niners this week, but it’s still undeniably a challenge.
