The 49ers don’t expect linebacker Fred Warner to return for Saturday’s playoff game against the Seahawks. Warner, though, says he’s ready and intends to play if the 49ers reach the NFC Championship Game.
“I’m ready whenever they’re ready,” Warner said on Ryen Russillo’s podcast, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “There’s some T’s that have got to be crossed, I’s that have got to be dotted. Unfortunately, if it were just up to me, I’d be out there this weekend, but it’s unfortunately not that way. I’ve got to make sure I’m checking all the boxes, and everybody has to give me the OK before they let me go out there.
“But I’m pushing, man. I’m training hard. I’m back doing full football drills and everything, so time will tell. We’ve got to pull the win off first.”
Warner dislocated and fractured his right ankle in Week 6.
He did rehab work on the side of the practice field Monday, lightly sprinting, so he is getting closer. But Warner needs the 49ers to keep winning to have a chance to return this season.
Jauan Jennings was a four-star, dual-threat quarterback recruit out of high school, ranked ahead of Sam Darnold, Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson. The 49ers wide receiver threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Christian McCaffrey in the team’s 25-22 Super Bowl LVIII loss to the Chiefs.
He threw another touchdown, this one a 29-yarder to McCaffrey, that gave the 49ers a 17-16 lead early in the fourth quarter on Sunday. The 49ers won 23-19.
“I was just thinking, ‘Get the ball, execute, tuck the ball away, make the defense think I’m running it,” Jennings said, via Kirk Larrabee of 49erswebzone.com. “And I saw Christian get open and [made] the right pass.”
Offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak suggested running “sky bang reverse pass,” a play the team hadn’t run since 2019 when wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders threw a touchdown to running back Raheem Mostert in a game against the Saints. They had the play in mind earlier in the game, setting it up with a sweep to wide receiver Skyy Moore.
On the double-reverse pass play, Moore took the handoff from Brock Purdy, tossed it to Jennings on a reverse before Jennings threw it to McCaffrey. Jennings drew a roughing-the-passer penalty on the play, too.
“We were trying to set it up a little bit,” Shanahan said. “We got a jet sweep to Skyy earlier in the game and we had to be on the right hash for the play because Jauan’s not left-handed, so we’re just hoping to get it around there. Klay suggested it. It was a hell of a suggestion.
“Jauan threw a perfect ball, which made me a little scared. I thought he should have just thrown a bad ball and put it on him, so I thought it was a hell of a catch by Christian, and I didn’t see it, but knowing that he got roughed up and stuff just shows what a G [that] Jauan is.”
The 49ers had practiced the play several times during the season, so when it was called, they were prepared for it.
“We had it up earlier in the year too, you know, some trick plays and stuff you have in some weeks,” Purdy said. “Some weeks you don’t. So, that’s something that we’ve sort of been working on, I guess, over the last I don’t know, however many months. But it was cool in that moment that they believed in JJ to get it done, so it’s cool.”
The Seahawks will host a playoff game this weekend. They want to be sure that as many Seahawks fans as possible are present.
Via Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times, the Seahawks recently sent an email to certain season-ticket holders who are in the habit of reselling their seats.
“Our records indicate that your seats for the upcoming Divisional Round Playoff game are currently posted for resale,” the email said. “As communicated before the 2025 season, 2026 renewal eligibility may be impacted if it is determined that your season tickets, including any playoff games, were used primarily for resale purposes.”
The email includes a directive to those who received it: “To avoid any impact to your renewal eligibility, we ask that you remove your resale listing and ensure your tickets are used by another 12. We encourage you to distribute your tickets directly to friends, family members, neighbors, or community groups that will help us pack Lumen Field with blue and green.”
The message takes on greater significance, now that the 49ers will be visiting Seattle on Saturday. 49ers fans have a habit of showing up in massive numbers, at times taking over a road venue.
The NFL has picked the days, but not the times or the networks, for next weekend’s playoff games. The final decisions will be made after tonight’s Texans-Steelers game.
The obvious question is why?
The most logical answer is that, if the Steelers win, the league will schedule Steelers-Patriots for the 6:30 p.m. ET slot on Sunday and that, if the Texans win, Rams-Bears will be played later.
While that doesn’t explain the decision to not attach a time or a network to the Saturday games, it’s possible that the league wants to have one AFC game at night and the other in the afternoon. It’s also possible that the league realizes the failure to assign times for the Sunday games would become more glaring if the league sets times for the Saturday games.
The league has access to all of the data, with projections as to which games will draw the biggest numbers. And it’s the league’s prerogative to wait until all eight teams are set to decide when the teams will play.
The winner of the Texans-Steelers game should be hoping for the 6:30 p.m. ET slot on Sunday, because every hour (and every minute) counts when operating on a short week. Especially for the Texans, who’d have to travel home and later make the trip to New England.
However it plays out, we’ll likely find out as soon as the Monday night game ends.
The days, but not the times or the networks, have been set for the divisional round. And there is a clear disparity when it comes to the time between games, for multiple teams.
The Broncos, with 14 days off, will face the banged-up Bills only six days after Buffalo’s win at Jacksonville. The Bills, in their reduced time, will have to travel home from Buffalo and travel to Denver for their next game.
Of course, that became unavoidable given the NFL’s decision to stage a wild-card game on Monday night, once the playoffs expanded to 14 teams and the wild-card round grew from four games to six. The Texans-Steelers winner has to play on Sunday (which is still a short week, but not Monday-Saturday). With the Patriots winning, they’ll host the winner of Monday night’s game on Sunday. The Bills-Broncos game had to happen on Saturday.
In the NFC, the short week for the 49ers was avoidable. The Rams and Bears both played on Saturday. Having them play the following Saturday would give both a full week. By putting that game on Sunday, the NFL has required the 49ers to fly home from Philly on Sunday night and to fly to Seattle for a Saturday game.
As Hall of Fame head coach Tony Dungy observed in a Monday morning Twitter post, “NFL playoff scheduling is not fair. It might produce good ratings but it’s not fair.”
Added Dungy: “Several years ago the league did away with Monday Night games in Week 18 of the regular season because it created a disadvantage if one of those teams made the playoffs. Now we create that disadvantage.”
It all goes back, in our view, to the NFL’s justification for a full season of Thursday Night Football football. Once the league concluded that the injury rate for games played with only three full days off is the same as the injury rate for games played with six full days off, the door was opened for any arrangement with three, four, or five full days between games.
Frankly, it’s surprising the NFL hasn’t slid a Week 18 game to Monday night. The winner plays the following Sunday, or maybe Monday. Problem solved. Money made.
The money is what drive this analysis. And the ratings drive the money. Prime-time games create bigger ratings. Whether the configuration of games and the time to rest, recover, travel, and prepare between games is fair to the participants doesn’t matter.
