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Javon Hargrave Returns to 49ers Practice; Arik Armstead Remains Out

Getting Hargrave back would be a huge boost for the 49ers, because he's their second-best pass rusher after Nick Bosa.
Grant Cohn|
Javon Hargrave Returns to 49ers Practice; Arik Armstead Remains Out
Javon Hargrave Returns to 49ers Practice; Arik Armstead Remains Out

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San Francisco 49ers

It seems the 49ers will have at least one of their starting defensive tackles against the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night.

Javon Hargrave returned to practice on Friday after missing the past game with a hamstring injury, which means he has a legitimate chance to play this week. Meanwhile, Arik Armstead remains out with a knee injury that has cost him the past two games, which means he very well could miss a third game in a row.

Hargrave seemed spry and rested as he went through the defensive line drills on Friday, while Armstead was nowhere to be found. Most of the time, injured players rehab or jog on the side of the field while they're out. Not Armstead. He hasn't made an appearance at practice since last week, when he walked off the field while the rest of the players were beginning their work.

Getting Hargrave back would be a huge boost for the 49ers, because he's their second-best pass rusher after Nick Bosa. But the 49ers' biggest task against the Ravens will be stopping the run, considering the Ravens have the second-best rushing attack in the NFL. And Hargrave isn't a great run defender.

Armstead is elite against the run. Teams can't move him out of his gap. He engulfs offensive linemen and running backs with ease. If he doesn't play, the 49ers could really struggle to stop the run, considering their run defense statistically is sub par even with him on the field.

We'll see if Armstead participates in the 49ers' walk through on Saturday. If not, you can probably forget about him playing on Christmas.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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