49ers roster: 4 players who won’t make it through rest of 2022
By Peter Panacy
The 49ers have a number of players either plugging gaps or who have lofty injury risks, and these four aren’t likely on the active roster by year’s end.
It’s always entertaining to make a big deal of the San Francisco 49ers’ opening 53-man roster ahead of Week 1. The sheer amount of predictions beforehand, and then the reactive analysis thereafter is entertaining.
The funny thing, though, is the 53-man roster changes on almost a weekly basis. And the team that takes the field for Week 18 looks almost nothing like that Week 1 group, particularly at the fringe areas of the roster.
On top of all this, the Niners have again dealt with a slew of injuries, meaning a number of players have been called upon to fill voids left by those who’ve been sent to injured reserve or other injury lists.
When those injured players return, the fill-ins usually find themselves unemployed once more.
Taking all this into account, as well as those who have serious injury risks, let’s look at four San Francisco players who won’t make it all the way on the roster to Week 18.
No. 4: 49ers cornerback Jason Verrett
It’s a bit unfair to predict veteran cornerback Jason Verrett not making it to the end of the regular season, given he hasn’t even played a single game in 2022 yet despite being cleared off the physically unable-to-perform list not long ago.
However, Verrett’s injury history is already well-documented, and his 2021 ACL tear ultimately cut halfway into this season, too, meaning it’ll likely take him at least a couple of weeks to get his proverbial “football legs” underneath him.
And the risk of suffering a follow-up injury in the wake of a previous serious one is high, too.
At this point, and in the wake of the 49ers losing starting cornerback Emmanuel Moseley to his own ACL tear back in Week 5, anything on the field from Verrett has to be considered a bonus. But there’s too big a chance of him being able to stay healthy for the rest of the year.
Considering 2020 was essentially the only season between 2015 and now when Verrett was healthy, it’s likely he’s not on the active roster to close out 2022.