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The San Francisco 49ers have a fairly limited injury report, with most question marks expected to play on Sunday. Unfortunately, Vernon Davis is one of the more prominent question marks. He is listed as questionable, and Jim Harbaugh said he was still day-to-day, and would be a game-time decision.
The 49ers tight ends include Davis, Vance McDonald and Garrett Celek. Demarcus Dobbs is still listed as a tight end, but we haven't heard anything of him playing tight end since early last year. Even with Dobbs in the picture, the 49ers will only have two traditional tight ends available in the event Davis is inactive on Sunday.
We all have wanted to see more of Vance McDonald, but I'm pretty certain none of us wanted it coming at the expense of Vernon Davis. If Vernon is unable to play, McDonald and Celek become that much more important in a game where the 49ers are likely going to want to establish the run against a weakened Colts defense. With safety LaRon Landry outand linebacker Pat Angerer doubtful, the opportunity is prime for the 49ers to do what they can to run over Indianapolis. In order to do that, they'll need strong blocking performances at tight end.
McDonald has been getting his chances, but he's still been fairly quiet and under the radar. He's had a couple nice catches, but Kap hasn't gone to him all that frequently. One modest upside to not having Vernon in the lineup would be getting McDonald a chance to continue building his rapport with Kap. Ideally this would happen either way, but we may be stuck taking the bad with the good.