The San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Chargers squared off in practice on Tuesday, and while the Chargers looked better on both sides of the ball by all accounts, one play in particular is a bit misleading in how it looks.
Chargers running back Omarion Hampton “trucked” his way through 49ers defenders in practice as he bounced off safety Ji’Ayir Brown and linebacker Jaden Dugger.
Watching the clip, it certainly looked like a poor tackling job on defense until one remembers the fact teams aren’t exactly supposed to be tackling in these joint practices:
fantasy managers take note pic.twitter.com/6atkzV9XvH
— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) August 18, 2026
Chargers' feeble dunk attempt on 49ers is laughable
Bragging about it is akin to an MLB team posting that a player is going to go off in the regular season because he hit a home run in spring training off a pitcher who is going to spend the entire year in the minors.
If it was an actual NFL regular-season game, then guys would have been trying to wrap up Hampton at the legs and doing literally everything to get him on the ground. The fact he wasn’t pursued all that fiercely just shows these practices aren't great representations of what an actual game would look like.
That doesn’t mean they’re pointless or nothing can be gleaned from them. Tuesday’s practice serves as a nice kick in the pants for the Niners as a reminder that not every opponent is going to be as easy as the Tennessee Titans. It’s probably good to see the Chargers dominate them on both sides of the ball as a bit of a wake-up call to add some extra motivation.
Still, anyone suggesting the 49ers are totally cooked or the defense is going to be terrible this season is simply overreacting to a practice. Maybe the video can serve as some bulletin-board material for Brown and Dugger in Thursday’s preseason game and motivate them to make a big play to show they are indeed strong tacklers.
Brown, in particular, is under a spotlight this season after his public tiff with former 49ers safety Donte Whitner in the offseason. There are going to be a lot of eyes on him all year, so everything he does is going to get magnified.
Dugger has impressed so far, but he’s a rookie. So every play he makes or doesn’t make it going to draw outsized attention as well.
It was just one play in practice, though, which is not going to make or break anyone’s season unless they get injured on it.
Thankfully, there were no season-ending injuries on Tuesday, and as long as the Niners can get through the rest of the preseason relatively unscathed, health-wise, then they will feel good about things going into the regular season.
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