The hold-in has ended. The preparations for Week 1 have been completed. So, when 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk takes the field on Monday night, how much will he play?
“Don’t know yet,” coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters on Saturday. “I think he plays most of the game, usually, and I’d probably be surprised with that same amount. But he’s in good shape. He’s had a really good week. His soreness hasn’t been too big after each practice. He’s pushed it real hard, done some stuff extra after. He looks good and he is ready to go.”
One of the things Aiyuk has been doing is working with his quarterback, Brock Purdy.
“They’ve been great,” Shanahan said. “They started throwing together, Saturday was their first time they came up here alone and just did it. And they’ve had — I think they did it Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and today. So they haven’t missed a beat. He’ll get back in the flow of things. Putting a lot on a guy, just to expect him to be exactly same way. But he does look that way in practice and he’ll get better each week.”
Well, they have missed a beat. They’ve missed weeks of beats, because the 49ers and Aiyuk didn’t set their mutual deadline before the opening of training camp. And that puts even more pressure on player and team to show that his absence from practice didn’t impact his preparations or the team’s fortunes.
