Elijah Mitchell Will Not Play Against the Falcons

The 49ers won't have their starting running back for the second week in a row.

Elijah Mitchell will miss the game with a concussion and a knee injury, both of which he suffered two weeks ago when the 49ers lost to the Seahawks. He hasn't practiced since that game.

"I think he might be getting cleared (from the concussion protocol) later today," head coach Kyle Shanahan said Friday. "It's just the pain tolerance with the knee. We thought it would go down faster, and it hasn't as quickly as we thought it would."

Shanahan said he's not optimistic Mitchell will play next Thursday against the Titans, but he's hopeful.

Mitchell was knocked out temporarily in Seattle. The NFL's independent sideline doctors checked him for a concussion, but he passed the tests, returned to the game and finished it. Then he felt concussions symptons later that night.

The 49ers played without Mitchell last week and beat the Bengals. His replacement, Jeff Wilson Jr., ran hard and averaged a respectable 4.3 yards per carry.

But he ran the ball only 13 times. So the 49ers had to drop back Jimmy Garoppolo 46 times, and he got sacked five times and nearly threw the game-losing pick-six, but Bengals safety Jesse Bates dropped what would have been the easiest interception of his career.

The 49ers are at their best when Garoppolo hands off twice as much as he throws, and that run-pass ratio is difficult to achieve without Mitchell.

Which means Garoppolo will have to lead the 49ers to victory this week.