Not Promoting Linebacker Marcus Rush from Practice Squad Burns the 49ers

The San Francisco 49ers elected not to promote linebacker Marcus Rush from the practice squad, who was signed to the Jacksonville Jaguars 53-man roster on Tuesday. The failed move hurts the Niners in more ways than one.

Despite having numerous spots available on their 53-man roster, the San Francisco 49ers decided not to promote pass-rushing linebacker Marcus Rush from the practice squad.

And it came back to hurt the Niners. The Jacksonville Jaguars signed Rush to join their own 53-man roster, according to multiple reports on Tuesday.

Why did the 49ers fail to act?

Rush was one of a number of preseason bright spots San Francisco had before the regular season began. He led all NFL players with six sacks and, as Jeff Deeney of Pro Football Focus pointed out, was also tops in pass-rush productivity at his position:

But Rush never made the 53-man roster out of the preseason. And many felt it was due to his problems against the run.

With the Niners posting the league’s 22nd-best sack total (27), adding Rush to the roster late in the year wasn’t the worst thing general manager Trent Baalke could do.

“I’m not going to second-guess people in the building,” defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil said (h/t Eric Branch of SFGate.com), when asked about Rush not being promoted.

The “Why Not” Outweighs the “Why”

True, Rush’s abilities against the run wouldn’t have helped San Francisco’s pathetic run defense this season, as Deeney points out.

And there is always the argument about what coaches and GMs see during practice sessions. These generally influence the majority of decisions regarding the formation of a 53-man roster. One also has to take preseason stats — mostly against second- and third-string units — with a grain of salt.

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Still, the 49ers are in all-out rebuilding mode. So if a player has something — even just the smallest of attributes — to offer, why not “test the waters?”

It isn’t as if San Francisco went in a similar direction either with edge rusher Tank Carradine.

Carradine, who was another preseason bright spot along with Rush, was rewarded with a one-year contract extension earlier this year.

That move hasn’t panned out at all during the regular season.

We’ll never know, unless he somehow returns, how Rush would have fit into San Francisco’s pass rush. It’s too late now.

And for a Niners team struggling to find any sort of defensive continuity, it’s a move the team likely wished it would have made.

Instead, the Jaguars will find out what Rush has to offer on game day.