SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The San Francisco 49ers got creative a few hours before Monday’s kickoff.
On defense, they elevated practice squad cornerback Jason Verrett, who hadn’t appeared in a game in more than two years, and later inserted him into the contest at a key juncture in the third quarter.
On offense, they addressed their wide receiver shortage by adding veteran Willie Snead IV to the 53-man roster. To do that, however, they had to remove someone from the roster, and the player they decided to waive was tackle Matt Pryor.
Both decisions bit them in the 33-19 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
Verrett, who entered as a nickel cornerback, gave up a 6-yard touchdown in the third quarter after receiver Nelson Agholor shook him in the end zone. Verrett played three snaps on the drive and then was done for the day.
Lamar to Agholor. Touchdown Ravens!
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Meanwhile, the 49ers ended up losing three offensive linemen — including left tackle Trent Williams and his backup, Jaylon Moore — which led to a reshuffling of the line that left Spencer Burford, who’d only played guard in his first two NFL seasons, at right tackle and newcomer Ben Bartch at left guard.
Williams suffered a strained groin while making a tackle attempt following one of Brock Purdy’s four interceptions. Williams wanted to go back in but was held back by the team’s medical trainers. Afterward, he told reporters, “I’m good, I’ll be all right” for next week’s game against the Washington Commanders.
GO DEEPER
Ravens ruin Brock Purdy's Christmas, crush 49ers
Moore left the game with a concussion while starting left guard Aaron Banks, who missed two games earlier this season with turf toe, suffered an injury to the same foot and had to leave the contest in the fourth quarter.
The injury issues come with the 49ers having to get ready to play on the East Coast on a short week, and with them needing wins to lock down the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
“The mindset is that you can’t let one (loss) turn into two,” linebacker Fred Warner said. “You have to wipe this one and, of course, learn from it. You have to watch the tape hard and be honest with yourself. Then you have to get back to work. Get right back to work. We can’t let this affect our confidence as a team. “
“Like I said after our three-game losing streak: This team’s been through worse,” defensive end Nick Bosa said. “We’ve been through worse things for sure. We still have everything ahead of us and we have the guys to come back from it.”
The decision to insert Verrett in such a big game was curious and seems to be part of the 49ers’ season-long quest to find a third, high-caliber cornerback, or at least someone who would be able to step in if their top cornerback, Charvarius Ward, had to miss a game.
Earlier in the year, the team experimented with veteran Anthony Brown, whom they ended up cutting at midseason. Verrett is more of a known commodity but also is someone who hadn’t appeared in a contest since the season opener against the Detroit Lions in 2021. He suffered a torn ACL in that game, then tore his Achilles tendon last year as he was getting ready to make his 2022 debut.
He was merely an observer during the 49ers’ most recent home game against the Seattle Seahawks on Dec. 10, watching the game from an eighth-floor tower suite. The 49ers signed him to the practice squad later that week and he impressed coaches in practice in his short time with the team. He was named one of the scout team players of the week for how he performed in the run-up to the Ravens game and the 49ers elevated him and defensive tackle T.Y. McGill before the contest.
“We wanted to get Verrett going a little bit just to mix him in there because it’s been a while since he’s played,” coach Kyle Shanahan said afterward. “He’s been doing some good things in practice, so we wanted to give him an (opportunity) out there a little bit it.”
Verett had played nickel cornerback early in his career with the Chargers, but he’d mostly been an outside cornerback after joining the 49ers in 2019. He was back at nickel on Monday, entering the game with the 49ers trailing 16-12 in the third quarter.
That was the quarter in which the Ravens took control of the contest, including on the touchdown to Agholor. Quarterback Lamar Jackson bought extra time by scrambling to his left and saw that Aghlor had easily gotten free of Verrett in the side of the end zone. Verrett left the field frustrated and sat by himself on a cooler while the rest of the defense huddled. He watched the remainder of the game from the sideline and declined to speak to reporters afterward.
The 49ers mostly played the rest of the game with the same cornerbacks with whom they started the contest and who had played so well together after the bye — Ward, Deommodore Lenoir and Ambry Thomas — although Thomas suffered a hamstring strain late in the game. Rookie cornerback Darrell Luter Jr. entered when Thomas went to the sideline.
Afterward, Bosa didn’t seem to know that Verrett had played, which underscored just how quickly the 32-year-old cornerback went from on-the-street free agent to practice squadder to playing a game against the top team in the AFC.
“He played a few snaps today?” Bosa said when asked about Verrett.
He went on to say he understood the impulse to get a look at someone as talented as Verrett.
“I was surprised that he was getting into it this quick,” Bosa said. “But he looked great in practice and everybody knows how elite of a player he is when he’s healthy. So just having him — whether he’s going to be rotating or as a backup — just having that security to know we have a guy who knows how to play the position as good as anybody is going to help us down the road. Because it’s a long year, guys are going to go down unfortunately.”
Shanahan, meanwhile, noted that Verrett had played nickel cornerback during a stint on the Houston Texans’ practice squad earlier this year and has concentrated on that spot since joining the 49ers two weeks ago.
“That’s where he wants to play and that’s where we feel he’s the best and where he can help us the most,” Shanahan said when asked if playing Verrett at nickel in such a big contest was too ambitious a task. “I think all NFL games are big, regardless of which one. Especially at this time of year. And we thought he was the best guy for us (based on) how practices were going and for our roster right now.”
(Top photo of Nelson Agholor scoring a touchdown against Jason Verrett:
Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
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