The San Francisco 49ers don't play until Monday night, but it's still concerning that virtually their whole offense was limited or missing from Thursday's practice. Among those that were limited or missing include Pierre Garcon, George Kittle, Matt Breida and Trent Taylor -- for those counting, that's pretty much all of their pass-catchers.
One very-difficult-to-spell name that does not appear on the most recent injury reports is Kyle Juszczyk. Juszczyk is the last man standing from the Niners' original running back group this summer after Jerick McKinnon suffered a torn ACL and Breida suffered an ankle sprain in last week's loss to the Cardinals.
With no one left to catch passes and only Alfred Morris left to tote the rock, Juszczyk is queued up for a major workload. The fullback tied his career high in targets (7) in Week 5 and is positioned to repeat that volume in Week 6.
A big reason for his recent spike in targets is C.J. Beathard, who targeted running backs on a whopping 36.4% of his throws last year. The check-down machine will now be forced to throw an even higher percentage of his throws to his running backs because there's no one else left standing.
The 49ers will likely be forced to play catch-up on the road in Green Bay against an increasingly healthy Aaron Rodgers. Kyle Juszczyk will be their leading receiver out of necessity.