The 49ers on Sunday wrapped up the NFC’s No. 1 seed, leading their Week 18 game against the Rams to become relatively meaningless for San Francisco.
They’ve secured a first-round bye in the playoffs thanks to snagging the top spot in the standings, but now they can ostensibly turn Week 18 into an opportunity to get some banged up players an additional week off.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan on Sunday after the 49ers’ win over the Commanders said he hadn’t given much thought to resting players, but it sounds like he’s keen to do so vs. the Rams.
“I’m not sure,” Shanahan said. “I really didn’t think about it. We were just focused on this (game). We’ll definitely try to rest some guys, but you can’t rest everybody. It’s too hard. You don’t have enough players, so we’ve gotta field a team without a doubt, but we’re gonna have a big week of practice, I still think there’s lots of things we gotta obviously get a lot better at and the only way you do that is playing football and practicing football. So, we’ll have a big Wednesday-Thursday-Friday, figure out our roster as the week goes, and decide what we’ll do for Sunday.”
There are some obvious choices to rest like left tackle Trent Williams who is dealing with a groin issue, and running back Christian McCaffrey who’s now working through a calf injury. It wouldn’t be a shock if quarterback Brock Purdy sat out as well.
Outside of that though Shanahan may rely on the week of practice to see who can/should take a week off vs. the Rams.
We might also see the 49ers treat Sunday like a preseason game where some starters play a couple series before exiting.