{"id":448451,"date":"2026-08-31T00:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T00:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/448451\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T00:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T00:46:13","slug":"49ers-news-christian-kirk-and-austen-pleasants-to-begin-the-season-on-ir-designated-to-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/448451\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers news: Christian Kirk and Austen Pleasants to begin the season on IR\/designated to return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan hinted at wide receiver Christian Kirk beginning the season on the Injured Reserve with a designation for return. He said the same about Vederian Lowe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">According to Matt Maiocco, that\u2019s true for Kirk, but not the case for Lowe. Instead, Austen Pleasants gets that designation. Pleasants is currently dealing with a knee injury. His ability to play tackle and guard may have made him more valuable to the 49ers with the current state of their offensive line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It also might speak to how serious Lowe\u2019s injury was. Lowe suffered a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ninersnation.com\/san-francisco-49ers-preseason\/160651\/a-couple-of-the-49ers-offseason-acquisitions-left-practice-with-injuries\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">high-ankle sprain<\/a> at the end of July. I wonder if he had a setback, or if the injury was bad enough that the team didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be an option to return early in the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It doesn\u2019t have to be an either\/or. It could mean Lowe is close enough to returning that he doesn\u2019t need a designation and can return to practice this week. We shall see.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">As for Kirk, it\u2019s no surprise that the team will be patient with him. It\u2019s one of the benefits of the Injured Reserve. He has experience in ways that Jacob Cowing and Jordan Watkins do not in the NFL as receivers. Plus, Kirk has production. He will add an element to the passing game the Niners have been missing once he returns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">We\u2019ll see how both of these moves impact the 49ers once they release their 53-man roster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Brett Toth and Nick Zakelj were the other two players placed on the Injured Reserve List.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan hinted at wide receiver Christian Kirk beginning the season on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,3322,3323,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-448451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers-injuries","tag-san-francisco-49ers-roster","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}