49ers promote practice squad receiver after placing De’Zhaun Stribling on the IR

Posted by Admin September 16, 2026 NFL

ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler tweeted that the San Francisco 49ers are promoting wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge to the active roster. That creates an open spot on the practice squad, which we’ll likely find out about later on Wednesday when Kyle Shanahan speaks to the media.

Hodge only played four special teams snaps in Week 1, both on the kickoff and kickoff return units. He’s expected to play a bigger role moving forward with De’Zhaun Stribling’s injury and the domino effect it’ll have on the rest of the wide receiver core.

According to Adam Schefter, the 49ers are playing Stribling on the Injured Reserve. Stribling will miss at least four games due to an ankle injury. Shanahan might have an updated timetable for Stribling, but don’t hold your breath.

This move was expected. It still feels like Stribling avoided the worst-case scenario after what looked like the dreaded non-contact injury. Let’s say Stribling misses 8 games and the ankle injury is more severe than initially anticipated. That’s a better outcome than what you were probably thinking when you saw Stribling unable to put any weight on his leg during Week 1.

Here is what the wide receiver room looks like heading into Week 2:

Mike Evans
Demarcus Robinson
Deebo Samuel
Jacob Cowing
Jordan Watkins
KhaDarel Hodge

Here’s how many routes each player ran last week:

Evans – 23
Robinson -18
Samuel – 18
Stribling – 13
Cowing – 3
Hodge – 1

We’ll have updates later today from Shanahan. Maybe we’ll find out how far away Christian Kirk is from returning.