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Rookie 49ers WR Jacob Cowing Misses Practice with Pulled Hamstring

What an unfortunate start to training camp for the 49ers rookies.

Grant Cohn

May 10, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers rookie wide receiver Jacob Cowing (83) runs drills during the 49ers rookie minicamp at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. Mandatory Credit: Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports
May 10, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers rookie wide receiver Jacob Cowing (83) runs drills during the 49ers rookie minicamp at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. Mandatory Credit: Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports / Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports
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What an unfortunate start to training camp for the 49ers rookies.

Fourth-round pick Jacob Cowing pulled his hamstring this week and missed Saturday's practice. It's unclear when he will return. Same goes for fourth-round pick Isaac Guerendo who pulled his hamstring in practice earlier this week. First-round pick Ricky Pearsall pulled his hamstring away from the facility before training camp even began, but has a chance to practice on Monday after the 49ers take Sunday off.

Rookies have a hard enough time earning playing time even when they're fully healthy. If they suffer hamstring injuries in camp, they can fall behind the rest of the older players which makes it extremely difficult for the rookies to get on the field. These next few weeks are critical for Cowing and the rest of the injured rookies.

It's worth noting that the 49ers head trainer for the past few years recently left the organization to take a similar job with the Atlanta Hawks, so maybe the 49ers' training staff is in flux. Or maybe the hamstring injuries simply are a string of bad luck. But it makes you wonder when three rookies go down with essentially the same injury if they're being worked too hard.

Cowing and Pearsall in particular have a great opportunity to play with the starters during camp while Brandon Aiyuk holds in and waits for a contract extension. But neither has been able to stay on the field long enough to show the 49ers what they can do.

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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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