The San Francisco 49ers officially placed quarterback Trey Lance on the Injured Reserve list to allow the team to make some necessary personnel changes ahead of their primetime Week 3 matchup with the Denver Broncos. The move comes three days after No. 5 fractured his ankle in the first quarter of the 49ers 27-7 win over the Seattle Seahawks at Levi's® Stadium.
On Wednesday, head coach Kyle Shanahan also reiterated the outlook for his sophomore quarterback's return from injury, ruling him out for the remainder of the 2022 season.
"He's doing as good as you can," Shanahan said. "Trey has been great. A number of guys have all talked to him a bunch. He's trying to come to the game this week. I don't think he will be able to until the swelling goes down and stuff like that, but he'll be back in and part of us sooner than later."
In addition to placing Lance on IR, the 49ers activated RB Marlon Mack to the active roster, signed QB Kurt Benkert and RB Tevin Coleman to the practice squad and released CB Kary Vincent Jr. Shanahan expressed the need to address depth issues at both these positions earlier in the week.
"He (Benkert) just had a good workout," Shanahan said. "You can only have six veterans on your practice squad, so just thinking how to balance that out, and we liked what we saw."
Benkert entered the league in 2018 as an undrafted free agent and had stints with the Atlanta Falcons and Green Bay Packers before landing in the The Bay. Benkert told reporters he was working in tech consulting, gaming and social media before signing with an NFL team.
He wore jersey No. 14 at practice Wednesday and began working in with Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Purdy during individual drills. Coleman was also a participant in practice and wore No. 28.
Injury Report from Wednesday's Practice
Offensive lineman Daniel Brunskill (hamstring), defensive lineman Arik Armstead (foot), running back Tyrion Davis-Price (ankle), tight end Tyler Kroft (knee) and left tackle Trent Williams (not injury related – resting player) all did not participate in practice.
Per Shanahan, Armstead injured his foot in Sunday's game against Seattle. When asked if there was concern regarding his availability for Week 3, the head coach said he believed Armstead would be "all right."
Meanwhile, tight end George Kittle appears to be trending in the right direction and was a limited participant in Wednesday's practice. He took part in individual drills and was also seen catching passes from Garoppolo.
Integrating Garoppolo into the Offense
Wednesday marked Garoppolo's first practice as a starter this season. Given his past five seasons with the team, getting No. 10 up to speed hasn't been a daunting task for the veteran QB, and the focus, at this point, is to get him used to taking the bulk of the reps at practices. When it comes to building chemistry with newer receivers, the head coach doesn't anticipate that being an issue either.
"I do think that stuff's a little overrated," Shanahan said. "If they're open, he's usually going to hit them. When people come, people have to get used to things because people don't always run routes the way that we have all of our guys do it. Sometimes that takes time, but you mainly train the guys in the offense and then they get very similar. Jimmy's been used to all the other wideouts and those guys are fitting in just fine."
