49ers Lose Tarvarius Moore and Justin Skule for the Season

The most-injured team in the NFL last year just can't get to the season in one piece.

Grant Cohn | Jun 8, 2021

This is getting ridiculous.

The most-injured team in the NFL last year just can't get to the season in one piece. On Monday during OTAs, backup safety Tarvarius Moore ruptured his Achilles, and backup offensive tackle Justin Skule tore his ACL, according to a team spokesman. Both players should miss the entire season.

Moore, 24, started eight games for the 49ers last season, because starting strong safety Jaquiski Tartt missed half the season with turf toe, an injury he still is rehabbing -- he won't return until training camp. So Moore had taken all the first-string reps at safety in OTAs. He's a key member of the team, both on defense and special teams

In 2020, Moore played 540 snaps on defense and 232 snaps on special teams. So the 49ers have to find someone to take all those snaps.

Fortunately for the 49ers, they signed veteran safety Tony Jefferson on Monday. Now, he's a key a member of the team, even though he has played just five games the past two seasons and is coming off a torn ACL.

Skule, 24, was the primary backup offensive tackle. He took all the first-string reps at left tackle in OTAs because Trent Williams didn't practice (good thinking in retrospect). Now, the 49ers need a new swing tackle. It could be Shon Coleman, but he hasn't played since 2017.

The 49ers also lost Jeff Wilson Jr. for four to six months during OTAs with a torn meniscus. Plus, Brandon Aiyuk, Raheem Mostert, Richie James Jr. and Travis Benjamin all pulled muscles.

Seems obvious the practices were too intense.

Teams can't win games in June, but definitely can lose them. We'll see how many games these injuries will cost the 49ers.

Published Jun 8, 2021

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.