The San Francisco 49ers announced their weekly practice squad elevations, sharing that wide receiver Willie Snead and cornerback Kendall Sheffield will be called up to the active roster for their Week 4 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals.
With the announcement that Snead would be called up, one may assume that 49ers wideout Deebo Samuel's status would be trending down, as the 49ers expect to add another wideout to the active roster for Week 4.
However, it's actually the opposite.
Looking at the injury report, the 49ers aren't at risk of just missing Samuel, but also wideout Jauan Jennings, who was ruled as doubtful with a shin injury.
As a result, head coach Kyle Shanahan revealed that the team would call up at least one wideout from the practice squad ahead of the game.
"It'll be [WR] Chris [Conley] or [WR] Willie [Snead IV]. Both of those guys are the same guys in subtly different ways to us, but we've got a lot of confidence in both of them. We'll figure that out based on which guys are down."
"We could [bring both guys up]," Shanahan said. "Only allowed two guys up, so it plays into everything though, so we'll see how it goes with the guys that are questionable."
With the 49ers bringing up a cornerback over a second receiver, that indicates that Samuel's status is ahead of cornerback Ambry Thomas, who was designated as questionable as well heading into the week.
Should Samuel play, the 49ers would roll out a receiver corps of Brandon Aiyuk, Samuel, Ray-Ray McCloud, Ronnie Bell, and Chris Conley for Sunday's game.
The star wideout was battling both rib and knee injuries throughout the week, but his physicality would be a nice complement to Aiyuk's route-running in a divisional matchup.