San Francisco 49ers reportedly unhappy with condition of practice field at UNLV
It’s a standard that the week ahead of the Super Bowl, teams use local facilities to practice. That is, of course, the case this year with the San Francisco 49ers borrowing the UNLV practice facilities. However, the 49ers are reportedly unhappy with the condition of that practice field at UNLV.
According to Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports, staffers for the team, including equipment staff and grounds team, went to check on the field and weren’t happy with what they saw. In particular, the staffers were concerned with the firmness of the surface.
UNLV has an artificial practice field. So, the NFL laid natural grass down over that for the 49ers to practice on and that’s the surface that the team’s staffers are concerned about. Now, San Francisco is being forced to think of alternative plans for the week of the Super Bowl.
One common concern when it comes to field conditions is safety, with some fields becoming known, fairly or not, as unsafe to play on. However, the 49ers staffers aren’t concerned about the field being unsafe to practice on in this case. Instead, the team simply prefers to play and practice on a firm surface.
The 49ers, per Jones, have three different options. The first is to use the field they consider to be too soft. If possible, San Francisco could also potentially bring in new sod ahead of practice on Wednesday with the hope that it would be better for the team. Finally, the 49ers may also choose to negotiate with the NFL to use the Las Vegas Raiders team facilities. The Kansas City Chiefs are currently scheduled to practice at the Raiders facilities.
A walkthrough on Monday will likely go into determining what the team does moving forward.
Jerry Rice encourages San Francisco 49ers to double Travis Kelce
On the field come game day, the San Francisco 49ers are going to need to find a way to stop Travis Kelce. That’s something that legendary wide receiver Jerry Rice has advice for, double team the star tight end.
“We got to get to Patrick Mahomes, and man, that’s a hard task. And Travis Kelce, I would double him 100%. Also, Taylor Swift, I would double her 100%, too. We don’t want Travis to get going. Every time Travis gets going, the camera goes up to the box with Taylor Swift. We got to change that. If we can do that, I feel like we have a legitimate chance,” Rice said.
“It’s going to be up to our defensive line and also the secondary to put pressure on Patrick Mahomes. Get some turnovers. And then we have to be able to get off to a fast start. That last ball game, 24-7 at halftime. We don’t want to be in that position with the Kansas City Chiefs. Especially with a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes.”