Will Aldon Smith be active or inactive?

The 49ers will announced their Week 3 inactives approximately 90 minutes before Sunday's game, which means around noon we'll officially find out if Aldon Smith is active or not. On Friday, Jim Harbaugh said that he anticipated Smith would play on Sunday.

All that being said, there is room for debate as to whether Aldon should start or sit. The team set a precedent last year when they deactivated Demarcus Dobbs after an early Friday DUI. He did not travel with the team to St. Louis that week. Harbaugh mentioned something about him not being around for the flight, but given that the team usually travels later in the afternoon, I'm not sure what to make of that.

There has been a lot of talk about the 49ers making a statement about this kind of behavior. From a moralistic standpoint that makes sense. From a pure winning standpoint, there is no way the team would deactivate Aldon Smith. I generally would like to think things fall somewhere in the middle, but given Harbaugh's competitive desire, does the moral implications of this end up mattering to him?

If I was in the situation, I deactivate him. Part of it is to avoid showing favoritism for a star. But part of it also would be to help provide Aldon Smith with some kind of wake-up call. He might not accept it, and might not change his behavior, but a pair of DUIs, with this one resulting in him out of it at the scene of a one-car accident, leaves me wondering what his deal is.

I would like the 49ers to deactivate Aldon Smith, but I don't think they actually will deactivate Aldon Smith. What do you think?

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