Predicting the 49ers inactives for Week 9 vs. the Cardinals

The San Francisco 49ers had a fairly lengthy injury report for Week 9 vs. the Arizona Cardinals, and that will make most of the team’s inactive report fairly easy. The 49ers have to deactivate seven players for Sunday, and we already know who six of them will be.

The final injury report included seven players ruled out. The group included WR Pierre Garçon, OT Garry Gilliam, DT D.J. Jones, DE Aaron Lynch, T Joe Staley, DE Solomon Thomas, and CB K'Waun Williams. The team has since placed Garçon on injured reserve, leaving the other six to be inactive today. Kyle Shanahan had said the plan was to place Gilliam on IR as well, but the fact that he has not been placed there yet suggests the injury is not as bad as they thought.

The last couple weeks, the 49ers have deactivated WR Victor Bolden Jr., DB Dexter McCoil, and LB Pita Taumopenu. Those three are all healthy, and one of them seems likely to be inactive today. Bolden will likely be the 49ers fifth wide receiver, so I doubt he is inactive. McCoil plays safety, and the decision to place Jimmie Ward on injured reserve could open the door for him to play.

That leaves Taumoepenu as the most likely to be inactive. The 49ers pass rush has been inconsistent, but nothing has made the situation worse this week. And in fact, the addition of Ronald Blair might make it even less likely Taumoepenu is active. He and Blair do not play the same position, but there is a little more front seven depth at this point.

The 49ers promoted Darrell Williams to the 53-man roster, and he is likely to be active as the team’s swing tackle. Joe Staley is out for this game, and the 49ers don’t have another tackle behind Trent Brown and Zane Beadles. Last week, we saw Beadles and Erik Magnuson finishing the game at tackle. That was not ideal, and I would be surprised if Williams was inactive.