Kurtenbach: The 49ers are short on time and shorter on bodies

On the list of things you don’t want to hear about the 2025 San Francisco 49ers, “We’re in a similar situation to where we were last year,” might be at the top of the list.

So when Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan said that on Monday after the team’s first practice of the second week of preseason, it wasn’t just a red flag — it was a thousand-foot flare demanding you look over here.

A similar situation to last season? You remember how last season went, right?

But Shanahan’s isn’t wrong. This team might not be mired in bizarre contract negotiations (Jauan Jennings’ scenario pales in comparison to last year’s Brandon Aiyuk or even Trent Williams’ absences), but the 2025 squad seems just as injured as the 2024 squad.

We know how that worked out.

For a team that needs to start the season strong — they open with a divisional game and have three NFC West matchups in the first five weeks — the ever-growing list of absences in Santa Clara has the Niners stuck in the gates with less than a month to go before their season opener in Seattle.

In Saturday’s preseason debut, more than a third of the team’s 90-man roster was held out of action. Even if the Niners wanted to play starters in that game, at many positions injuries are so widespread it’s difficult to differentiate the first string from the third.

Last year, the Niners were so injured and generally shorthanded the team had to cancel a joint practice with the Saints. They didn’t have enough bodies. And seeing as how Shanahan values joint practices more than any preseason game, it was telling on Monday that he suggested that this week’s joint practice with the Raiders in Nevada might be seriously limited.

“We couldn’t do [third-strings] today. We couldn’t do one-on-ones today,” Shanahan said. “We’ve had to cut things out. Hopefully we don’t have to cut too many things versus Vegas, but we’ll see after [Tuesday’s] practice.”

So much for that “new year, new Niners” mantra.

All these injuries, on top of the general mystery that comes when you dramatically reshape a roster, as the Niners did this past spring, leave San Francisco in an inauspicious spot in the final stretch of preseason. (Week 1 prep starts in two weeks.)

San Francisco won six games last year. That wasn’t a mistake or a one-year blip — it was a destiny manifested in training camp when they were lethargic, undisciplined, and distracted for more than a month. That was easily chalked up to contractual chaos and the dreaded Super Bowl hangover.

But while the off-the-field nonsense was a problem, and the hangover was real, injuries were the 2024 49ers’ biggest problems.

In training camp and beyond, day was a crapshoot on who would be at work.

There might be larger issues at hand with how the 49ers handle medical issues — I’m no doctor — but there’s a near comical level of absence with this team, again.

This season, the Niners roster is younger and more unproven. There’s no Super Bowl hangover, but the practice crapshoot is still happening.

As it stands on Monday, the team’s preferred starters at wide receiver and top rookie — four of the top five — on the depth chart are in question or already ruled out for Week 1.

The defensive line is so banged up that general manager John Lynch is signing a new player nearly every day just to get a two-deep for practice.

The same thing is happening running back — Jeff Wilson rejoined the team Monday.

And while, yes, all these injuries have provided opportunities for the Niners’ large stable of young players to see serious practice action, and that’s a good thing — they need the reps, even if they’re Not Ready For Primetime Players — it’s also resulted in depth safeties standing in at linebacker in scrimmages, and more reps from Dallis Flowers (fourth season, third team), Russell Gage (eighth season, fourth team), and Patrick Taylor (sixth season, fourth team) than anyone planned.

At least with last season’s team, you could (foolishly, it was proven) provide the benefit of the doubt. They don’t need the reps together – they were just in the Super Bowl.

This team — whatever it might be — needs those reps together. They just won six games and then underwent a massive roster renovation. They’re entitled to nothing.

When those all-important reps will come — if they come — is anyone’s guess. As it stands, it won’t be this week. Next week — with the team’s possible “dress rehearsal” preseason game against the Chargers — looks murky, too.

But please, keep telling me how easy the team’s schedule is. At this point, the hype around the perceived easiness of the schedule is so frequently discussed, it, more so than any player, might be as well standout performer of camp.

Wishful thinking doesn’t amount for much in this league.

The Niners need this season to be different. And yet, with Week 1 fast approaching, it appears to be anything but.

After Saturday’s preseason debut, a blowout loss to the Broncos where the 49ers’ lack of depth was glaring, the knee-jerk reaction from many seemed to be “here we go again.”

An overreaction? Perhaps.

Then again, on Monday, Shanahan agreed.