With injuries mounting at an unbelievable pace, the San Francisco 49ers might have to get creative just to field a football team on Sundays. Already injury-plagued, the team was battered even more against the Arizona Cardinals. 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan provided a pretty massive injury update on Monday.
As expected, safety Jaquiski Tartt, who suffered a broken arm against Arizona, will be headed to the injured reserve list. He played well for the 49ers this season. Tartt was ranked as the 11th-highest graded safety according to Pro Football Focus. He has started all nine games for the 49ers this season and registered 55 total tackles, an interception, and three passes defensed.
"We're going to plan on moving Tartt, Cole Hikutini, and [Garry] Gilliam -- they should go to IR later today or possibly tomorrow," Shanahan said.
We already knew tackle Garry Gilliam was headed to injured reserve. Once again, Shanahan confirmed that. Gilliam injured his MCL against the Philadelphia Eagles while starting in place of Trent Brown, who was recovering from a concussion.
Undrafted rookie tight end Cole Hikutini will also be headed to injured reserve with an MCL injury, which he sustained on Sunday against Arizona.
"It's not just MCLs," Shanahan said. "There's other stuff in it. They're fairly bad MCLs. Grade three."
Three other 49ers' rookies were injured against the Cardinals. Wide receiver Trent Taylor (ribs), tight end George Kittle (ankle), and linebacker Elijah Lee (knee) are not expected to play on Sunday against the New York Giants, according to Shanahan.
"[Taylor] was complaining about some soreness in his ribs," Shanahan said. "He had an awkward cut. You can see it on tape. You can just see him reach for his ribs and he fell and ended up breaking one."
Shanahan said that the 49ers are hoping to get Taylor back after the bye week.
"I could tell watching [Kittle] throughout the game that he was struggling," Shanahan said of his rookie starting tight end. "I know he went down with an ankle, we lost him for a little bit. It was the second play of the game. He had an explosive pass, got tackled, they rolled up on his ankle. They were afraid his fibula was broken -- or his tibia, whichever one of those two that is. They were afraid it was broken so they took him in for X-rays...
"The next special teams series, we lost Cole, who was the guy who would replace him. Later in that game, we lost [Juszczyk]. They all kind of play the same position in different ways. We didn't ask George to do that but he said he could go, and he went out there, and he allowed us to function. I earned a great deal of respect for him for him doing what he did."
Defensive tackle D.J. Jones (knee), fullback Kyle Juszczyk (neck), tackle Joe Staley (eye), guard Brandon Fusco (biceps), cornerbacks Dontae Johnson (shoulder) and K'Waun Williams (quadricep), and defensive ends Aaron Lynch (calf) and Solomon Thomas (knee) will all be limited during practices this week. Shanahan said each is likely to be a game-time decision on Sunday.
As previously reported, Staley is not expected to return to the field until at least after the bye week. While Johnson will practice this week in a blue no-contact jersey, Shanahan expects him to be ready to play against the Giants.