San Francisco 49ers’ Mike Evans catches a pass during the NFL football team’s training camp, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif.
Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
The San Francisco 49ers are averaging about three injuries per practice. Ten players on their active roster did not participate Monday due to injury. Four more are on their season-ending injured reserve list.
All-Pro wide receiver Mike Evans missed Monday’s session — the sixth of training camp — due to a quad strain. Rookie running back Kaelon Black was a new spectator with an adductor injury.
The attrition also includes wide receivers De’Zhaun Stribling (hamstring tightness) and Christian Kirk (calf strain), safety Malik Mustapha (hamstring strain), running back Jordan James (fractured ribs), defensive ends Keion White (adductor) and Cam Sample (knee), rookie defensive tackle Gracen Halton (knee bone bruise) and swing tackle Vederian Lowe (high ankle sprain). Stribling is considered day-to-day.
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Rookie edge Mikail Kamara (knee), a notable undrafted free agent signing out of Indiana, also tore his ACL and was waived with an injury designation over the weekend. Kamara will revert to season-ending IR, joining wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (knee), defensive linemen Andrew Farmer II (back) and William Bradley-King (undisclosed), along with safety Darrick Forrest (undisclosed), if he clears waivers.
Defensive tackle CJ West (undisclosed) and rookie edge Romello Height (elbow) returned to practice Monday, marginally shortening the injury report. Cornerback Jack Jones was in pads but walked off with a trainer early on. He subsequently did some work on a side field and observed during the 11-on-11 scrimmaging portion of practice.
Unlike previous camps in the Kyle Shanahan era, he and his staff have implemented a “jog-thru” to help manage workload. The 49ers would typically practice three days in a row. This year they’ve staggered their schedule with two practices, a jog-thru, and then a third practice.
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Early returns on the change remain decidedly unclear.
“I think three days of full-speed football in today’s age, I just don’t know if it makes a lot of sense because you never do that in season,” fullback and team captain Kyle Juszczyk said Monday.
“It makes a lot of sense to do it the way that we’ve set it up, and hopefully it leads to less injuries. I know we’ve had a number of guys banged up but sometimes that can be bad luck.”
The 49ers have ranked poorly in adjusted games lost, an advanced statistic intended to measure the cumulative effect of injuries on a team, for more than a decade. They averaged the highest AGL from 2013-21, sported the highest total AGL in 2020 and 2024, and most recently finished 2025 with the fifth-highest AGL.
Sounds familiar: The rash of summer injuries are threatening to end a training-camp kicking competition prematurely for the second straight year.
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Special teams coordinator Brant Boyer noted the roster attrition could end the punter battle between Corliss Waitman and undrafted rookie Jack Bouwmeester before the preseason opener against the Titans on Aug. 13.
“Can the roster handle both of them for that long depending on injuries and stuff like that?” Boyer said. “Obviously, you want to keep them for as long as you can to see them in (preseason) games and things like that. Hopefully, we can do that.”
Last year, the 49ers released kicker Greg Joseph early in training camp when he was competing with Jake Moody and Shanahan said their injuries didn’t allow them to keep two kickers on the roster.
If the 49ers have to make a similar call this year, that would probably bode well for Waitman, 31, who has 231 career punts over four NFL seasons. Bouwmeester, who is from Australia, didn’t join the 49ers until training camp due to complications with his work visa.
“I think that the longer we can see him, the better,” Boyer said.
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Do-it-all Deebo: Boyer’s reaction to last week’s signing of wide receiver Deebo Samuel: “Hell yeah.”
He was pumped because Samuel, 30, has recently emerged as one of the NFL’s best kickoff returners. He’s averaged 30.8 yards on 32 runbacks over the past two seasons, the highest average in the league among the 29 players with 30-plus returns over that span.
Before signing Samuel, the 49ers didn’t have an obvious replacement for Skyy Moore, who signed with the Packers after he ranked sixth in the league in kickoff-return average (27.5) in 2025.
“Anytime you add a guy like (Samuel) to the roster, you’re jumping up for joy as a special-teams coach,” Boyer said.
Samuel has been a part-time kick returner the past two seasons. He had 17 runbacks in 2025, and 15 in 2024. General manager John Lynch said Samuel has committed to returning kickoffs full-time in 2026.
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In his first five seasons, Samuel had just nine kickoff returns, with the 49ers putting him back deep in crucial moments.
“He’s a difference-maker,” Boyer said.
Rookie LB works with D-line: Jaden Dugger was drafted in the fifth round to play linebacker. His versatility, however, was notable after he played linebacker, edge and safety at different points in his college career. Monday was the first time Dugger worked with the defensive line group, which was particularly shorthanded due to injury. Dugger recorded what would’ve been a sack in a live setting from a defensive end’s alignment.
“Played safety in high school and in college, then he (moved) down to play on-the-ball linebacker, and this last year was his first time playing true stack linebacker,” former NFL linebacker and current linebackers coach K.J. Wright said in the spring. “You can see the rawness in him, and I love that type of stuff. I like a guy that I can groom, that I could mold, that I could build, I could teach how to strike and use their hands, and so he’s just getting started.”
Shanahan update: Shanahan reached another marker Monday when he addressed the team from the center of the post-practice huddle for the first time since his car crash. Every day brings a new note of progress, it seems. The head coach also spoke as he normally would in a morning team meeting over the weekend.
General manager John Lynch expressed confidence at the start of training camp that Shanahan was expected to return to coaching well before the regular-season opener against the Rams in Australia.
“He seems to be getting better, genuinely, each and every day I see him out there,” said Juszczyk, who has regularly chatted with Shanahan during practices. “He’s out there a little bit longer. He’s starting to, you can just tell that energy is coming back to him. So I feel like he’s going to be back full-time here pretty soon.”