The San Francisco 49ers offense will not get quite the test it could have in their second game of the preseason schedule. Denver Broncos beat writer Mike Klis is reporting that DE Von Miller, OLB Shane Ray, DE Derek Wolfe, S T.J. Ward, and ILBs Todd Davis and Brandon Marshall will all be sitting out the game.
Fooch’s update: Nicki Jhabvala is reporting wide receivers Emmanuel Sanders and Cody Latimer will not play either.
I’m disappointed the 49ers offense won’t get to face several starters, particularly Von Miller. The 49ers offensive tackles have taken on Miller regularly during the two joint practices, but will not get him in live action. At the same time, Kyle Shanahan puts more value in practice than in games during the preseason, to some extent. Earlier this week, he had this to say about it.
“[A]lmost throughout preseason I see practices more important. It’s not just in the scrimmages. You never know what’s going to happen in a game. You never know what the coverages are going to be. You want to see someone, but someone misses a block, so you can’t see that person. You never know what looks you’re going to get. In practice, you can control it a little bit and you can put players in certain situations that allows you to evaluate them, which gives you an idea whether they’re good enough to do it or not. Then you spend practice kind of knowing who the guys are good enough to play in this league, but then that still doesn’t mean that you know how they’re going to react under the pressure and the big lights. That’s what I like the preseason for. The guys you don’t truly know on a personal level how they’re going to handle the pressure, what they’re going to be like in a stadium. Those are the guys that we try to really see out there. Are they going to be better than they were in practice or are they going to be worse? Usually, if they are playing at a high level in practice and they can carry it over to the preseason games, then you feel like you’ve got a pretty good idea of what you’re dealing with.”
I’d still prefer seeing the best Broncos out there, but the 49ers can only prepare with what’s in front of them. Ideally we see some improved play from the starting offense compared to last week.