The San Francisco 49ers have lost several key players to injury through the first few weeks of their 2025 campaign, including starting left guard Ben Bartch, who suffered a high-ankle sprain in the team’s Week 2 win over the New Orleans Saints.
Bartch landed on injured reserve, and rookie offensive lineman Connor Colby took his spot. After battling his own injury throughout the week, Colby made his first NFL start on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi’s Stadium and helped his team earn a 16-15 win.
Earlier this week, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan spoke about Colby’s first start and his performance in the NFC West contest.
“I thought the fact that Connor was able to battle and do some of the stuff that he did, especially with the injury that he had on Thursday just had a ton of respect for him getting through that game,” Shanahan said. “It wasn’t perfect. There was definitely protection, there was a few that he missed. But overall, I thought he played good enough for us to win and just earned a lot of respect with the guys actually just being able to play with what happened to him earlier in the week.”
The 22-year-old was San Francisco’s seventh-round pick (No. 249 overall) in the 2025 NFL draft following a four-year stint at Iowa where he earned All-Big Ten honors twice.
In his first start, he played all 65 offensive snaps, earning a 46.6 overall grade (64.3 run-blocking and 14.1 pass-blocking) from Pro Football Focus.
Obviously, there’s a lot for Colby to clean up ahead of the team’s Week 4 battle with the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, but the fact that he went out there and didn’t look totally overmatched is a good sign for someone who was supposed to fight for a roster spot this year.
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This article originally appeared on Niners Wire: Kyle Shanahan says 49ers rookie ‘earned respect’ in win vs. Cardinals
Reporting by Mike Masala, Niners Wire / Niners Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
