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The San Francisco 49ers have shaken up their injury-ravaged running back unit and it’s good and bad news for Jarryd Hayne.
The struggling 49ers cut underperforming running back Travaris Cadet on Tuesday.
Instead of the 49ers promoting Hayne off the practice squad to fill the vacancy left by Cadet on their 53-man active squad, the team instead went trawling through rival NFL team’s practice squads and signed the Baltimore Ravens’ DuJuan Harris.
The good news for Hayne is he wasn’t cut along with Cadet and there is still a chance they might call Hayne up to play the Detroit Lions on Sunday.
Hayne appears to remain on the outer with coach Jim Tomsula and special teams co-ordinator Thomas McGaughey, who last week said the Australian “needs to learn how to play football”.
Tomsula, in an interview with San Francisco radio station KNBR, praised Hayne’s work ethic, but echoed McGaughey by saying the Australian “just needed to play football and get a feel of the running game”.
The 49ers’ running backs have been hit by injuries, with their top running back in recent weeks, Shaun Draughn, suffering a knee injury in last weekend’s loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.
If Draughn is ruled out for Sunday’s clash with the Detroit Lions, the 49ers only have Kendall Gaskins, Hayne, new recruit Harris and possibly Mike Davis available.
The team takes three running backs into each game.
An injury cloud still hangs over Davis who has been out since breaking his hand on November 1.
The 49ers announced on Tuesday Davis has returned to practice, although Tomsula said on Monday he won’t risk rushing Davis back unless he has fully-recovered.
The 49ers’ two best running backs, Carlos Hyde and Reggie Bush, are injured.
The team’s opinion of Hayne will be clear if Draughn and Davis are both ruled out, but the 49ers still don’t promote Hayne for the Lions game.
As Harris’ move to San Francisco shows, if any of the other NFL teams think Hayne could be of value to their 53-man squads they can sign him at anytime.
The 49ers have lost 10 of their 14 games of the regular season and with just two left have no hope of making the playoffs.
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