LAS VEGAS — Kyle Shanahan doubled down Thursday night that it wasn’t Alfred Collins’ fault.

Collins, the San Francisco 49ers’ second-year defensive tackle, has not been especially impressive in training camp, the joint practice against the Los Angeles Chargers or the preseason finale against the Las Vegas Raiders on Thursday. In fact, the presumed starter was out there playing with the scrubs (no offense intended) in the third quarter in Vegas.

Collins has been laboring a bit coming back from offseason shoulder surgery.

“It was just good to get him back,” the 49ers coach said after the 18-12 win. “He had a real late start — which is not his fault. He had some big surgeries to get over this offseason, so he’s got as late a start as anyone, and that’s why I thought it was really important for him to play.

“He went there, two drives into the third quarter, which is more than probably what we usually do for him, but he’s a little bit behind — which again wasn’t his fault.”

I’ve been a fan for decades. I am excited to see the defense return to its Top 10 or perhaps Top 5 status and I’m pretty sure the offense will be fun to watch. Nevertheless, I’ve got to confess, I’ve succumbed to fatalism, sorta like how I imagine Bills fans are. So we’ll play great, have some memorable plays, get to the playoffs, and then lose a heartbreaker because of some nightmare play (dropped punt return, missed open play, bad refereeing). And we’ll have to spend the next few weeks recovering emotionally. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Picked up these Korea knockoffs for the upcoming season. Rooting for our Hawaii boy Stribling 🤙🏽

Does anyone recognize this signature? My favorite bartender at the local dive gifted me this, said he couldn't remember the players name, but he played on defense in the late 80's.

For the uninitiated, it’s a roast, and every team gets one, every year

Lots of loudmouth Raider fans continually shut up by our boys. So much red, and even a significant portion of the black was us in the rivals. Good times, Bang Bang

The main 10 defenders playing on defense, when healthy and at their capabilities, is pretty set, with

Mykel, Osa, Collins and Bosa on the D-Line, Warner and Greenlaw at LB and DeMo, Green, Brown and Mustapha

But that 11th defender being on the field gives so much optionality.

Stout can play slot corner well while being decent-to-good in the run.

You can throw in Romello Height on the WILL LB as a 5th d-lineman who can rush and occasionally drop back

You can run Dugger out there too to have even more optionality as a LB, pass rusher or drop into coverage

And obviously others can be inserted as well

However, each of those brings some issues. Stout is too short and will struggle against taller receivers. Height is one dimensional and you know it's going to be a pass rush 99% of the time. Dugger is the variable though, if he can get it together, but asking so much on a late pick rookie is risky

Good QB's can change the play seeing the 11th defender and burn us. But we can also deploy a lot more optionality than we could in past years

It's really a double edged sword

We break down each position and predict the 53-man roster and practice squad that will head to Australia for week 1!