Jimmie Ward and Jaquiski Tartt OUT against the Patriots

Good grief.

Grant Cohn | Oct 23, 2020

The 49ers would have a terrific safety tandem if their starting safeties could just stay healthy.

But they can’t. Jaquiski Tartt and Jimmie Ward get injured and miss games every season. And both will miss the upcoming game against the New England Patriots. Tartt has a groin injury he suffered last Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams. And Ward has a quadricep strain he suffered Thursday during practice that could keep him out multiple weeks.

Good grief.

“They gave (Ward’s injury) a 1.5 grade,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said on Friday. “I don’t think it will be real long, but we know for sure he’s not going to make the trip with us. We hope that will help him get a chance to be ready for next week.”

Ward signed a three-year, $28.5 million contract extension with the 49ers this offseason -- the 49ers let DeForest Buckner leave in free agency in part so they could re-sign Ward. But Ward has missed at least five games in all but two seasons of his career which began in 2014. He’s injury prone.

And so is Tartt, who has missed at least four games every season since 2017. Tartt will be a free agent at the end of this season. If the 49ers lose their next two games, they could trade him for a draft pick at the deadline on Nov. 3.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The 49ers haven’t lost yet. This Sunday, their starting safeties most likely will be Tarvarius Moore and Marcell Harris. And I believe Moore is an upgrade over Ward. So let’s see what happens.

Published Oct 23, 2020

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.