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49ers SS Talanoa Hufanga (Ankle) is Inactive Against the Patriots

In his place, the 49ers most likely will start George Odum who started the first two games and allowed a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when targeted.

Grant Cohn

Sep 22, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers safety Talanoa Hufanga (29) warms up prior to the game against the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
Sep 22, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers safety Talanoa Hufanga (29) warms up prior to the game against the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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The 49ers won't have a key starter in the secondary today against the New England Patriots.

Talanoa Hufanga officially is inactive due to an ankle injury he suffered in practice on Thursday. Hufanga tested the ankle on the field before the game but the team trainers did not clear him to play.

Hufanga made his season debut last week in the 49ers' 27-24 loss to the Rams after missing the first two weeks of the season with an ACL injury he suffered in 2023. He played pretty well last week, as he recorded 7 tackles. But he also gave up a 32-yard catch, so he's still rusty.

In his place, the 49ers most likely will start George Odum who started the first two games and allowed a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when targeted. He infamously gave up a 97-yard touchdown catch to Justin Jefferson in Minnesota.

Odum is a 30-year-old special teams ace who historically has struggled playing safety. If he continues to struggle today, the 49ers could bench him and turn to rookie Malik Mustapha. Through three weeks, Mustapha has played 36 defensive snaps, he has recorded 4 tackles, he has been targeted once and he has not given up a catch.

It seems obvious that Mustapha is the better option to start because he's young and promising as opposed to Odum who's old. But head coach Kyle Shanahan plays young players only if he absolutely has to. He'd prefer to play veterans who know the scheme than young players who have talent.

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Grant Cohn
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.

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