Predicting 49ers' 53-man roster after 1st week of preseason games

The San Francisco 49ers flew out to Nashville on Saturday and played a preseason contest against the Tennessee Titans. The score (a 17-13 Niners loss) doesn't matter, mostly because the Niners chose not to play most of their starters and the ones who did feature, such as guard Aaron Banks or right tackle Colton McKivitz, saw the field for only a few snaps.

But as has been mentioned previously, this 49ers squad is one of the best in the league, so the battles for roster spots are mostly on the fringes, making games like the one in Nashville on Saturday night hugely important for many guys on the edges of making the team.

In many ways, that makes continuing to project San Francisco's initial 53-man roster simultaneously easy and difficult; easy because there are many locks, difficult to figure out what will happen in those backup or depth roles.

Add to that the current flux surrounding players like left tackle Trent Williams and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, not to mention the flurry of injuries the Niners have faced in the last few days, and there is value in the exercise.

So let's start with the offense and build what the roster could look like in a few weeks when teams trim down to 53 players heading into Week 1 of the regular season.