Jim Tomsula met with the media Thursday afternoon, and he announced a list of players who will not play this weekend in the San Francisco 49ers preseason opener. Reggie Bush is healthy, but will not play on Saturday. NaVorro Bowman might play this weekend, but Tomsula would not commit to that. He did say that if Bowman played, it would be fairly limited.
The 49ers also have a host of injured players who will not travel to Houston. That group includes Dres Anderson, Bruce Ellington, Nick Bellore, Daniel Kilgore, Kendall Hunter, Aaron Lynch, DeAndre Smelter, Jimmie Ward, Philip Wheeler, and Michael Wilhoite. Tomsula said they will stay back to continue working with the strength and conditioning staff over the weekend.
Most of this is not particularly surprising. Tomsula said he knows what Bush can do, but the team is continuing to work him in slowly. He did not get work in the team drills for the first few days of camp, but has slowly worked his way into that as well. I imagine we see a little of him in Week 2 and 3 of the preseason, but otherwise he will continue to just work toward Week 1 of the regular season. This opens the door for Mike Davis, Jarryd Hayne and Kendall Gaskins to get a lot of work. Additionally, Hayne and DeAndrew White can get some extra work in the return game.
NaVorro Bowman is another guy who needs to get some physicality in, but there is also no need to go crazy in the preseason. Tomsula said if he does not play on Saturday, he will get some more time later in the preseason. With Wilhoite and Wheeler also not playing, I imagine Nick Moody, Desmond Bishop and Shayne Skov are all going to get a lot of ILB reps this weekend.