We are just over 48 hours away from the San Francisco 49ers’ first preseason game. The team travels to Kansas City tomorrow for Friday night’s game against the Chiefs. The team wasn’t in pads today.

Line Up

The 49ers released center Jeremy Zuttah. Between that move and Joshua Garnett’s injury, we have a pretty good idea of who will start on the line Friday night and beyond.

“…[Garnett’s] going to get his knee cleaned out tomorrow, said Shanahan. “…I know I’m hoping that he has a chance for Week 1, but I know that’s going to be a battle.”

The 49ers figured there would be a camp competition between Zuttah and center Daniel Kilgore, but Kilgore has shined.

“You know, with Zuttah, that was a tough decision,” said Shanahan. “…I think it says a lot about how Kilgore has been playing…Then just going through our whole plan for the preseason, how we’re going to play these guys and the guys we really needed to look at. It just looked to us that we weren’t going to give Zuttah a lot of playing time throughout the preseason…I told him this morning, I had a hard time doing that to him. We wanted to give him a chance to go somewhere else instead of keeping him here and making him go through that.”

Look for Kilgore to start at center, Brandon Fusco and Joe Staley at the tackle positions, and Zane Beadles and Brandon Fusco at guards. Happy protecting gentleman!

Reuben Foster

During today’s team drills, Reuben Foster lightly limped off the field with an ankle injury. He got taped up and briefly returned to practice before being sidelined for the day. Before that, he was working with the first team defense, as he did on Monday.

“His ankle has been bothering him a little each day,” said Shanahan. “It looked like he kind of did the same thing, just kind of got stepped on a little bit. No one ran up to me right away so I feel pretty optimistic about it. But, I’ll find out more when I get back in.”

C.J. Beathard QB2?

C.J. Beathard continues to impress at training camp. Though he has pretty consistently looked sharper than Matt Barkley, today was a particularly good day for the rookie who owned the best throw of the day on a 50-yard pass to Victor Bolden, Jr. Unfortunately, Bolden didn’t catch it, but that takes nothing away from Beathard.

“I think C.J. has done a good job since he’s been here,” said Shanahan. “He’s attacked it as hard as he can. I thought he’s got a good grasp of the offense throughout OTAs. Some days are better than others, just like all guys. There’s a few times I did think he got in a rhythm today and hopefully he can keep continuing going forward.”

Matt Barkley will be the #2 quarterback on Friday night, but I think there’s a very good chance Beathard takes that role come September.

A Couple Things

• Shanahan said his starters will not play “much more” than a quarter against the Chiefs.
• Rookie Akhello Witherspoon, who has taken his share of hits, literally, in training camp, had a nice interception today on a pass from Barkley.
• As reported by Matt Barrows of The Sacramento Bee, Donavin Newsom will stay at Stanford Hospital another night as he recovers from yesterday’s concussion.
• Shanahan said the 49ers have not reached out to cornerback Tramaine Brock after the domestic violence charges against him were dropped.

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Go Niners!