49ers place WR Tavon Austin on the injured reserve with a knee injury

The 49ers announced that they’re placing wide receiver Tavon Austin on the injured reserve after he suffered a knee injury. Austin had impressed during training camp to the point where many beat writers believed he would make the roster, even with Richie James being activated from the NFI list. James likely now will make the final roster cuts, but I wouldn’t rule out the team signing veteran Mohamed Sanu. General manager John Lynch didn’t earlier Thursday morning.

The laundry list of injuries continues at 49ers practices, specifically for receivers. As a coaching staff, there’s no way to prepare yourself for this. The good news is the team will have James back, and hopefully Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk next week. One thing to keep an eye on over the next couple of days will be which wideout the team ends up keeping on the roster. Jauan Jennings and Shawn Poindexter are “big” targets that separate themselves from what’s currently on the roster.

As Thursday’s practice is underway, the following players were not practicing:

DL Nick Bosa

LB Fred Warner

OL Ben Garland

WR Brandon Aiyuk

WR Deebo Samuel

WR Trent Taylor

WR Tavon Austin

FB Kyle Juszczyk

Ross Dwelley returned to practice on Wednesday, which is good news for him as he needs to show he’s one of the seven-best pass catchers on the team. To me, Dwelley is competing with Jennings just as much as he’s competing with Charlie Woerner.

Dre Greenlaw returned to practice as well, though he’s wearing a blue non-contact jersey.

This is the second day in a row Taylor has missed practice.