49ers 53-Man Roster Projection: The Good Kinds Of Hard Decisions

The preseason is officially a wrap and the time has come to make some decisions. The San Francisco 49ers wrapped up a 3-1 preseason slate with their most impressive performance by the roster, middle to bottom, thus far. The 49ers deactivated their entire starting defense, along with Michael Crabtree, Randy Moss and Frank Gore, as well as possibly Vernon Davis and Kyle Williams, whom I did not see on the field. And yet, the 49ers were able to take the San Diego Chargers behind the woodshed with a 35-3 thrashing.

The 49ers now get to make their final roster decisions to get down to the required 53-man roster by 6:00 p.m. PT tonight. The team will make plenty of changes over the course of the season, but after 6pm, the team cannot exceed 53 players.

There are always tough decisions in the final cuts, but these are possibly the most difficult roster cuts in a decade. That is not exactly surprising considering the team's NFC Championship Game run and considerably depth heading into this season.

I really have no idea what to make of the Scott Tolzien versus Josh Johnson. I have Johnson in my 53-man roster mainly because he had the strongest recent performance. However, can we quickly forget Tolzien's strong performance against the Vikings in the preseason opener? Both performances came against the lower parts of the opponent's depth chart. Johnson's performance against the Chargers was more impressive, but we can't forget that Tolzien has showed some things. For now I'm sticking with Johnson, but it is based on nothing more than my gut.

After the jump, I've posted my final 53-man roster projection, along with a preliminary practice squad projection. NFL teams can start signing players to their practice squads beginning at 9:00 a.m. PT on Saturday. I'll have another projection tomorrow morning reflecting roster cuts.