The 49ers on Tuesday will wrap up their last home practice before hitting the road for a pair of joint practices with the Las Vegas Raiders.
San Francisco will then have their preseason opener against the Raiders on Sunday. While the game will draw plenty of eye balls and attention, it’s the practices that have head coach Kyle Shanahan’s attention.
Shanahan on Monday told reporters why he puts more stock into the practices vs. another team than the actual game.
“Yeah, I definitely do because you get to make sure that guys are getting evaluated,” Shanahan said in a press conference. “You do normal plays, you get to put guys in situations. You never know how a game’s going to unfold, what the situations are, who’s in there. Sometimes you get in situations where you can’t do stuff based off of protections and things like that in games. So in practice you get to get everything done and you get to learn a lot more about the guys, to me, than you do in the games.
“Negatives are, it’s always more competitive going against another team, so you want to make sure that there’s no fights. You want to make sure both teams treat each other with respect. And I think us and the teams we’ve gone against have fairly been pretty good about that. And I expect (Las Vegas Raiders Head Coach) Josh (McDaniels) and his crew to be the same.”
Shanahan is showing his preference for practices in the way he’s operating for the preseason opener. He said the starters will get all their reps in practice before sitting out the game. This is the same tactic he used last year after joint practices with the Vikings in Minnesota.
Any key players who struggle in the joint sessions could see some unexpected game action, but it’s more likely than not that practice performances give Shanahan and the coaching staff enough info to move forward with their roster building without putting players in harms way for an exhibition game.
