The San Francisco 49ers ruled out Alfred Collins for Friday's regular season opener against the Los Angeles Rams after he sustained a knee injury in Tuesday's practice, and Kyle Shanahan later said Collins has a torn patellar tendon and will miss the 2026 season.
That leaves San Francisco starting the first NFL regular season game in Australia without one of its injured linemen when it faces Los Angeles at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with the team releasing its final injury report after Thursday's practice in Melbourne.
The report also leaves James Thompson Jr. in question. He is listed as questionable with a hamstring injury after sitting out Tuesday's session and then returning in a limited capacity on Wednesday and Thursday. If he is active, the safest reading is that his role will likely be controlled rather than full, because three straight days of work with the questionable tag usually point to availability before volume.
Nick Bosa and George Kittle were limited throughout all three practices, even after Bosa said Thursday that he is 100 percent ready to go for the first game and that his week of practice in Melbourne went great. Shanahan said the club will be mindful of both players' workloads, a sign that being cleared and being unleashed are not the same thing.
That was the broader shape of the report, too. Luke Gifford, Renardo Green, Dre Greenlaw, Gracen Halton and Romello Height were full participants on Thursday after being limited earlier in the week, while Upton Stout was full all week and Kyle Juszczyk stayed limited without carrying a game designation. For a team opening a season on foreign soil, the final injury sheet reads less like a formality than a snapshot of who can be trusted to go now and who still needs managing.
San Francisco and Los Angeles are scheduled to kick off Friday at 10:35 a.m. Australia time, or Thursday at 5:35 p.m. PT, and final decisions on gameday availability will come 90 minutes before kickoff in Melbourne. For Collins, that decision is already made. For Thompson Jr., Bosa and Kittle, the last word still belongs to the pregame check.
