The NFL has officially suspended 49ers wide receiver Demarcus Robinson for the first three games of the season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.
San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan said last week the suspension was coming, and today the NFL announced it.
Robinson will not be allowed to practice or play during the first three weeks of the season, against the Seahawks, Saints and Cardinals. He will be eligible for reinstatement on Monday, September 22, after the third game of the season.
The suspension comes as a result of a no contest plea to misdemeanor DUI after Robinson was pulled over for driving his car at a speed in excess of 100 mph and refused a field sobriety test.
Injuries have left the Falcons thin at offensive tackle heading into the opening weeks of the regular season, so they agreed to a trade on Tuesday to bolster their depth.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the Seahawks are sending tackle Michael Jerrell to Atlanta. The Falcons will send back a conditional 2027 seventh-round pick.
Jerrell was a sixth-round pick last year. He played in 10 games and made three starts for the Seahawks during his rookie season.
Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said that right tackle Kaleb McGary will miss “significant time” after injuring his leg in practice last week. Swing tackle Storm Norton is also out for an extended period of time after having ankle surgery.
Wide receiver injuries have been a theme of the 49ers’ summer and head coach Kyle Shanahan offered a pair of updates on that front after Saturday’s game.
The word on Jauan Jennings was more positive than it was for Jacob Cowing. Jennings has been out for an extended period with a calf injury, but Shanahan gave a positive update when asked if Jennings is in jeopardy of missing their Week 1 road game against the Seahawks.
“I mean, if it doesn’t heal, yes,” Shanahan said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “But I expect him to be back. I think he should be back from it, but you never know with calves.”
Cowing re-injured his hamstring and it sounds like a trip to injured reserve could be in his future.
“A while,” Shanahan said. “Yeah, he pulled it fully. It was the same one, so I think they told me like six weeks to start.”
The 49ers are also waiting for Brandon Aiyuk to be cleared to return from last season’s torn ACL and fourth-round pick Jacob Watkins is dealing with a high-ankle sprain. They are also expected to be without Demarcus Robinson while he serves a three-game suspension, so there’s still quite a bit to sort out at the receiver spot as the team prepares to set their initial 53-man roster.
Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker has been in and out of practice throughout training camp due to a foot issue.
While Walker won’t end up participating in any preseason games this year, he was able to suit up for the joint practice with the Packers.
“This week has been big for him, I think,” head coach Mike Macdonald said, via Ari Horton of the team’s website. “The plan, it’s hard to plan these things out several weeks in advance because you don’t know how things are going to respond, but we take it week by week and plan it out then go attack it.”
Macdonald added that at this point, Walker is unlikely to practice every day.
“It’s just the way it is,” Macdonald said.
Macdonald has said that Walker looks great and has been “really good” when he’s been out there.
In 11 games last season, Walker rushed for 573 yards with seven touchdowns and caught 46 passes for 299 yards with a TD.
Fights have been a staple of joint practices all summer, so it’s only fitting that one of the final ones of the year saw a player ejected for scrapping with the opposing team.
Packers right tackle Zach Tom was ejected from the team’s session with the Seahawks in Green Bay. Tom said he took issue with Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones coming to the Packers huddle to go after a teammate and he wound up swinging at Jones and Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon in a fight that quickly spread to include others from both teams.
Tom said he thought Jones was “disrespectful” and weighed in on whether he should have been booted from the session.
“I feel like, yeah, I can have better control — not throwing punches — but I don’t know,” Tom said, via Brady Henderson of ESPN.com. “It is what it is, you know? I can only control what I can control.”
There were other scuffles between the Seahawks offense and Packers defense and both teams renewed hostilities after the practice came to an end.
“I didn’t appreciate in general them coming to our sideline while practice was over,” Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams said. “We’ve already broke the huddle, guys are on our side, their guys are on their side, and people are coming over. It’s hard with these joint practices because stuff like that always happens. You don’t want it to happen, but it happens. We try to avoid it as much as possible, but I didn’t appreciate it.”
The two teams will close out the preseason with a game on Saturday and it sounds like all involved are ready to turn their aggression toward the games that count in the standings.
