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Cornerbacks Ahkello Witherspoon and Greg Mabin will be game-time decisions, prompting a roster decision
Dec 15, 2017 at 2:02 PM
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San Francisco 49ers cornerbacks Ahkello Witherspoon (knee) and Greg Mabin (calf) were listed as questionable on
Friday's injury report as the team prepares for Sunday's game against the Tennessee Titans. Both were limited during Friday's practice.
"Ahkello will be a game-time decision along with Mabin," Shanahan told reporters on Friday. "Both of them. Ahkello had the tweak in the game on his knee. Mabin had a tweak in practice. We went pretty light on them both today. We'll end up making that a game-time decision."
Witherspoon was injured during the fourth quarter of Sunday's 26-16 victory over the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium. The injury occurred on the play that saw rookie safety Adrian Colbert force a fumble out of the arms of Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins.
Witherspoon, who is a rookie drafted in the third round, has started the 49ers' last six games. His first start came on October 29 against the Philadelphia Eagles, just two days before the 49ers traded away former starting cornerback Rashard Robinson to the New York Jets.
Mabin played 26 snaps on defense against the Texans and added 19 on special teams. He was signed to the 49ers practice squad on October 18 and promoted to the active roster on November 1.
With both players ailing, the 49ers will need to make a roster decision before Saturday.
"We'd have to bring a corner off the practice squad," Shanahan said. "We've got two on it right now. That's a decision we'll have to make before tomorrow. I think the deadline is one (o'clock). We'll probably end up having to do that. We just finished practice. I'm going to figure out how healthy these guys are. I know we took it light with them today.
"We won't know for sure until Sunday what direction we're going to go. So we'll probably have to activate one of our two guys off the practice squad."
In case you were wondering, the two defensive backs on the practice squad are Tyvis Powell and Channing Stribling. Powell is in his second NFL season while Stribling is a rookie.
The 49ers also have cornerback Dontae Johnson, who had a rough outing against the Texans. According to Pro Football Focus, he allowed nine catches on 10 targets for 140 yards and a touchdown before seemingly getting benched. Johnson also committed three penalties in the game.
On Thursday, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh explained that Johnson was not benched. He was just given "a breather."
"I have not lost faith in Dontae," Saleh said. "That whole sequence, when you go through a drive like that, the thought process behind that whole sequence with Dontae is: Just give him a breather. 'Just relax, calm down, you'll be fine.' The intent was to get him back in, but then Ahkello got hurt. Either way, he was going to go back into the game. So it was not a benching more than a breather."
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