The San Francisco 49ers return to practice Wednesday afternoon, and as expected, several players are not going to be taking part in practice. The group of expected DNPs include offensive tackles Mike McGlinchey and Joe Staley, center Weston Richburg, wide receivers Marquise Goodwin and Dante Pettis, and Richard Sherman. All were expected after either getting hurt on Sunday or missing the game entirely.
One player who will be practicing is safety Adrian Colbert. His status for Sunday is still to be determined, but head coach Kyle Shanahan said he would be surprised if Colbert wasn’t out there this week. He would not fully commit to Colbert starting over D.J. Reed on Sunday, but Shanahan said that if Colbert is healthy, he would likely be the starter.
Whoever has a better week of practice. We’d always lean towards Colbert because it was his job to start with and he played at an extremely high level last year and started out this year doing that. Been playing banged up for a while, gave him a chance to get healthier last week. We believe he’s going to be much healthier this week, so I’d be surprised if he wasn’t out there.
Thursday is when we’ll get a better handle on who will potentially be available for Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals. A player can miss Wednesday and Thursday, practice Friday and play on Sunday, but if a player gets into practice both Thursday and Friday, it is a strong bet we’ll see him playing on Sunday. This will be particularly notable to watch for Staley, McGlinchey, and Richburg.