49ers Bolster Depleted Roster, Sign Veteran Receiver Brandin Cooks and Defensive Tackle Naquan Jones

The injury bug does not care about your Super Bowl window, and right now, it is biting the San Francisco 49ers hard. Facing a suddenly thin depth chart ahead of their Week 3 clash with the Arizona Cardinals, general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan hit the transaction wire on Wednesday, September 23, 2026. The headliner of the afternoon was a 12-year NFL veteran who knows exactly how to stretch a defense. The 49ers signed 32-year-old wide receiver Brandin Cooks to their practice squad, while simultaneously poaching 28-year-old defensive tackle Naquan Jones off the Minnesota Vikings' practice squad to a one-year active roster deal. These are not blockbuster deadline swings; they are the gritty, necessary moves that keep a championship-caliber roster functioning when the injury report starts reading like a novel.[1][2][4]

The offensive additions are pure survival mechanics for a roster built to win right now. San Francisco's receiver room has been decimated in the opening weeks of the 2026 campaign. Veteran Demarcus Robinson and rookie De'Zhaun Stribling were both recently banished to the Injured Reserve list, with Robinson nursing a severe high ankle sprain that will sideline him for at least a month. Add in the fact that Christian Kirk is not eligible to practice until after Week 4, and the 49ers were staring down a game day with barely enough healthy bodies to run their standard three-receiver sets. Quarterback Brock Purdy needs reliable targets, and relying purely on practice squad elevations of unproven rookies was a risk the front office clearly was not willing to take against a competitive NFC West division.[3][4]

Enter Brandin Cooks. Originally selected 20th overall in the 2014 NFL Draft by the New Orleans Saints, the 5-foot-10, 189-pound speedster brings a resume that few available free agents can match. Cooks boasts six 1,000-yard receiving seasons across his career and has racked up 734 receptions for 9,811 yards and 60 touchdowns through the air. While he only appeared in five games for the Buffalo Bills in 2025—catching five passes for 114 yards—his pedigree as a vertical threat gives Shanahan a proven weapon to stash and ramp up. Cooks is one of only two players in NFL history, alongside Brandon Marshall, to record a 1,000-yard receiving season with four different franchises, proving his unique ability to adapt quickly to new playbooks and quarterbacks.[1][4]

"Just awesome to get a veteran receiver here," head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters on Wednesday when asked about the high-profile practice squad addition. "I mean, Brandin, I've been a fan of him for the last 10 years. He's had a hell of a career, been a hell of a player. We're down on guys, so it's awesome to get a guy in here who's done it before and done it for a long time." Shanahan noted that while Cooks will start on the practice squad to learn the intricate offensive system, his track record suggests he will not stay there for long once he gets his legs under him and absorbs the terminology.[3]

The pitch to get Cooks to the Bay Area did not require much salesmanship; the sheer volume of available snaps did the talking. "Just showing him our situation," Shanahan explained regarding the recruitment process and how they convinced the veteran to accept a practice squad slot. "He knows that we're down guys, so he's going to have an opportunity to get up eventually. Tell him we'd give him a chance to come here, let him show us what he can do, give him a chance to compete to get up." For a player turning 33 years old this week, the chance to catch passes in a highly efficient offense with immediate upward mobility was an easy sell.[3]

On the other side of the trenches, the defensive line needed emergency reinforcements just as badly. Defensive tackle James Thompson Jr. went down with a high ankle sprain in Week 2, and Alfred Collins is already stashed on the Injured Reserve list. To make matters worse, the team placed C.J. West on injured reserve with an undisclosed injury on Wednesday to clear a roster spot, leaving starters Osa Odighizuwa and Gracen Halton dangerously exposed on the interior. The 49ers pride themselves on a deep, rotating defensive front that keeps pass rushers fresh for the fourth quarter, and the sudden lack of bodies threatened to unravel defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen's entire game plan.[1][2][5]

By signing the 6-foot-3, 313-pound Naquan Jones directly to the 53-man roster, the 49ers secure immediate rotational mass to plug the bleeding. Jones went undrafted out of Michigan State in 2021 but quickly carved out a role with the Tennessee Titans, logging 2.5 sacks and 29 tackles in 13 games as a rookie. He split his 2025 season between the Los Angeles Chargers and Houston Texans, recording 13 tackles across 12 appearances, before catching on with Minnesota's practice squad in early September 2026. Plucking him from a conference rival gives San Francisco a battle-tested run stuffer who can eat double teams and keep the linebackers clean without needing a month to learn the scheme.[1][5][6]

To round out Wednesday's transaction flurry, San Francisco also signed defensive lineman Viliami Fehoko Jr. to the practice squad and released cornerback Jakob Robinson to make room. Fehoko, a 26-year-old former fourth-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys in the 2023 NFL Draft, returns to the 49ers after a brief stint with the team in late August. He brings familiarity with the system and offers another emergency lever if the defensive line suffers further casualties. When the attrition of a brutal 17-game NFL schedule starts taking its toll this early in the year, front offices have to get creative. For the 49ers, that means betting that a 32-year-old speedster and a well-traveled run-stuffer still have enough gas in the tank to keep the machine rolling toward January.[1][2]