The San Francisco 49ers secondary is one of the more banged up units on the team, and things got a bit more concerning. The 49ers announced that safety Antone Exum has been downgraded to questionable status for Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers due to his quadracep injury.
This injury is new, as it didn’t show up on Wednesday’s practice report. If Exum is unable to play, that would leave Tyvis Powell as his backup and Jimmie Ward possibly an option as well given the latter’s familiarity with the system.
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was complimentary of Exum on Friday and his potential start against the Chargers.
“I mean, Exum’s here for a reason. I thought he got a lot better as the game went. I think he made some mistakes early in the game and I think once he played a little bit more I think it slowed down for him. From a physical standpoint, I thought he played fairly well just running. I thought he tackled fairly well. I thought he did good jobs in his coverage. I think it took him a little bit for the game to calm down for him as it did for a lot of our defense in the first half. But, I was definitely happy with how he finished.”
Both safeties Adrian Colbert (hip) and Jaquiski Tartt (shoulder) did not practice Wednesday and are dealing with injury issues of their own, so this does not help the unit which is almost just looking for bodies. For now the listing may just be a precaution, but we’ll find out more in the Sunday morning on what’s really going on.