5 biggest surprises from 49ers initial 2019 53-man roster

The San Francisco 49ers, like the rest of the teams in the NFL, released their initial 53-man roster on Saturday. And while there were certainly many places where things lined up as expected, there were several that were quite surprising.

Training camp and the preseason games have all been leading up to this: the announcement of the San Francisco 49ers initial 53-man roster for the 2019 NFL season.

There were several players who made the team without question, such as starters like quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, wide receivers like Dante Pettis, Marquise Goodwin and Deebo Samuel, tight end George Kittle, defensive lineman such as DeForest Buckner, Nick Bosa, Dee Ford, and quite a few others.

In other areas of the 49ers roster, however, there were players who were fighting for positions until the bitter end of the preseason, some of whom featured heavily in the fourth and final preseason game, something which usually indicates such a roster battle.

Because a lot of the information general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan use to make their final decisions happens behind closed doors during practices and in the locker room, that leads to several roster choices that seem to be confusing or even completely nonsensical.

Those types of decisions are the more interesting ones to analyze. So with the roster in place — at least for now, since waiver claims and trades could still take place between now and the season opener on Sept. 8 — let’s take a look at the biggest surprises from the roster as it currently stands.