49ers vs. Packers: 4 key preseason questions that need answers

The 49ers unofficially kick off their 2022 season Friday playing the Packers in the first preseason game. Here are four questions they need to answer.

After six months without football happening, training camp coming around is like Christmas in July.

But with a voracious appetite for content, there’s a tendency to take things that need to be viewed with heavy doses of context as the undisputed truth.

We’ve seen that extensively with the San Francisco 49ers. Practice is for practicing, for trying new things, for doing things that would never be seen in games.

Luckily, there’s a solution: preseason games. Because the second there’s another team and there’s an official record, everything is the end-all-be-all.

Again, not so much. The record books are full of preseason heroes who were unable to make a mark when the games actually mattered.

Counting stats might not be all that helpful, but there are real answers to be found in the preseason. Game settings matter. They let players get a sense of the cadence and rhythm of their scheme, and they let coaches see how players perform with a sense of heightened expectations. For a team like the Niners, with youth at key positions, there are meaningful answers to be found in the limited time players get.

Here are the four questions San Francisco will be trying to answer on Friday when it hosts the Green Bay Packers for Week 1 of the 2022 preseason.