49ers cancel joint practices with Saints due to injury concerns

ESPN’s Nick Wagoner reports that the San Francisco 49ers have cancelled their joint practices with the New Orleans Saints this week, citing injury concerns. The 49ers will instead remain in Santa Clara, and the Saints will remain in Irvine as planned. The two teams will meet in their second preseason game next Saturday.

Wagoner says the 49ers are dealing with a host of injuries, and they doubt whether the sessions could even be run properly because of it. Both teams have suffered various injuries throughout training camp and the 49ers, unfortunately, saw cornerback Ambry Thomas carted off in their preseason matchup with a broken forearm. They had 33 players not posting snaps in their preseason game and while there were a decent number of starters in that group whom they did not want to play, there was also a significant injury report leading in as well.

The Saints have had similar issues recently as well, with 15 players not on the field for their preseason opener, and they did play starters so those were injury-related. Ultimately, it makes total sense for the cancelation, as sustaining further injury for either team would be catastrophic, and preventing that at all costs to make it to preseason Week 2 generally unscathed would be preferrable. While it would have been a nice litmus test to see where the Saints stand, they will have a chance to see things pan out in their game just a few days later.