49ers Activate Brandon Aiyuk from Reserve/COVID-19 List

Has the 49ers luck begun turn?

Grant Cohn | Dec 2, 2020

Has the 49ers luck begun turn?

Sure, they're homeless, and that's never good. But their team is getting healthier while other teams are getting injured and ill.

On Wednesday, the 49ers activated wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, defensive tackle D.J. Jones and defensive end Jordan Willis from the Reserve/COVID-19 List. Meaning they should practice all three days this week and be ready to play Sunday night against the Buffalo Bills.

Jones and Willis will return to a defense that has performed exceptionally without them. The 49ers don't necessarily need Jones or Willis, but they're quality players who will make the defense even deeper and more dangerous.

Aiyuk is different.

The 49ers offense really freaking needs Aiyuk. He makes a quarterback's job easy, just like Deebo Samuel does, because both of those guys can catch a screen pass behind the line of scrimmage and run 80 yards for a touchdown.

The 49ers defense has played well no matter who's been on the field. Unlike the 49ers offense, which plays well only when the playmakers are on the field, and struggles when the playmakers are out. Simple.

Backup quarterback Nick Mullens hasn't played a game this season with all the playmakers -- Aiyuk, Samuel, Mostert, Juszczyk and Kittle. On Monday night, for the first time this season, Mullens should have all of them except Kittle. Which bodes well for Mullens, who has spent most of this season handing off to Jerick McKinnon and throwing to Kendrick Bourne -- decent players. But not playmakers.

Published Dec 2, 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.