Nine Takeaways From The 49ers' 19-13 Loss To Tennessee, Starting With The Rookie Who Caught Seven Passes

Tennessee beat San Francisco 19-13 at Levi's Stadium on Thursday night. Joey Slye kicked four field goals for the Titans, from 39, 55, 53 and 58 yards, and the 58-yarder with 2:23 left put it away.

The 49ers out-gained Tennessee 322 net yards to 279, made 22 first downs to 18, converted 9 of 19 third downs and held the ball for 32:48. They scored 13 points. Brock Purdy and Mac Jones did not play, which Kyle Shanahan had said earlier in the week, and neither did most of the men who will start on September 10 in Melbourne. This is about the other eighty.

Playing time below is drives and halves, not snaps: the club's game center carried a box score and a scoring summary at the 5:25 a.m. PT check Friday, and no participation report.

1. De'Zhaun Stribling was the best 49er on the field, and the corner across from him was a starter. The second-round rookie receiver, No. 15, 33rd overall out of Ole Miss, caught seven of eight targets for 63 yards. He caught the first offensive snap of the game for six. He caught a 32-yard throw down the right sideline at 13:32 of the second quarter, and an 11-yarder to the Tennessee 4 that the Titans challenged as out of bounds and lost. Cor'Dale Flott, who started at cornerback for Tennessee, made or shared the tackle on four of the seven. David Lombardi of The San Francisco Standard had him lining up outside and in the slot, and his one drop was his first since his final college season.

2. Kurtis Rourke started, completed 12 of 14, and finished the night at a hospital. Rourke, No. 14, the 2025 seventh-round pick who missed all of last season with a torn ACL, took the first three offensive drives and went 12 of 14 for 101 yards with a 96.7 rating, plus three carries for 14 yards. Amani Hooker and Cody Barton both hit him on a three-yard run to the Tennessee 1. He did not come back out after that drive, the one that produced San Francisco's only touchdown. "They said ribs. He was struggling to breathe, so they took him to the hospital just to check on everything, make sure it's all right," Shanahan said afterward. "The X-rays here didn't show it was broken or anything, but we'll see what we find out tomorrow." The third quarterback job was the clearest thing on the field for eighteen minutes and is now a medical question.

3. Gracen Halton's best play was erased by a teammate, and he made another one on the next snap. The fourth-round rookie defensive lineman, No. 93, 107th overall out of Oklahoma, sacked Cam Ward for a loss of 14 on the first snap of a Tennessee drive. Defensive holding on Jakob Robinson wiped it out. On the very next snap Halton dropped Tyjae Spears for a loss of one. He finished with four tackles and a tackle for loss, two of them plus the erased sack against Tennessee's starters.

4. Jaden Dugger started at linebacker, and both of his early snaps were the job description. The fifth-round rookie, No. 53, 154th overall out of Louisiana, opened at what Lombardi describes as the Fever backer, a hybrid of inside linebacker and edge rusher. On Tennessee's second defensive snap he ran Ward down on a scramble and held it to two yards. Four plays later he got stuck on right tackle JC Latham's block on third-and-10 and a short throw to that side went for 16.

5. Robert Jones started at left guard. Connor Colby started at right guard. That is the plainest thing the game said about the camp's longest-running argument, and it is not the same as settling it. Jones, No. 65, is the man the club's first unofficial depth chart of 2026 listed as the starting left guard. He also drew the offensive holding call that wiped out a 21-yard Rourke throw to Jordan Watkins at the Tennessee 18 in the first quarter. Colby, the second-year guard out of Iowa who took the first-team left guard reps at the start of camp, lined up on the right.

6. Jake Brendel was not in uniform, and the middle of the line was the worst part of the night. Drake Nugent, No. 66, started at center. At 4:03 of the second quarter a shotgun exchange came loose at the Tennessee 44 and Adrian Martinez recovered his own team's fumble. Doug Kramer Jr. worked in relief. The 49ers have spent this month auditioning centers. Thursday was the first live evidence about why.

7. Four running backs carried 23 times for 52 yards. That is 2.3 a carry: Sincere McCormick 10 for 38, Khalil Herbert 6 for 18, Patrick Taylor Jr. 5 for minus 5 with the one-yard touchdown, Zamir White 2 for 1. The two quarterbacks carried five times for 32. The touchdown needed help: a delay of game pushed San Francisco from the Tennessee 1 back to the 5, and a pass interference call on Flott put it back.

8. Adrian Martinez went 16 of 30 and cost his kicker fourteen yards. Martinez, No. 4, threw for 159 yards on 30 attempts with a 68.6 rating and took both of the sacks San Francisco allowed, for a combined 22. The one at the end of the first half mattered: sacked out of bounds at the Tennessee 43 for a loss of 14, which turned a reasonable field goal into the 61-yard attempt Eddy Piñeiro left short with 18 seconds on the clock. Piñeiro finished 2 of 3, good from 52 and 41. Martinez did lead both second-half field goal drives, and a third that reached the Tennessee 13 and produced nothing.

9. The injury list, as roster facts. Rourke, ribs, hospital, no break on the stadium X-rays. Jack Jones, who started at cornerback, hand, did not return. Jacob Cowing, oblique, did not return. Nick Martin, stinger, returned, and finished with a team-high eight tackles and a fifteen-yard personal foul. Nate Hobbs did not play at all: he pulled a groin at Tuesday's practice and is expected to miss several weeks. Five names, and cutdown day is August 30.

San Francisco threw 44 passes on Thursday and none of them scored.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play, Tennessee at San Francisco, August 13, 2026. The club's recap and game center at 49ers.com, recap published 10:13 p.m. PT August 13. 49ers Webzone recap and injury report, August 13. David Lombardi, The San Francisco Standard, August 13, 9:04 p.m. PT. The club's roster page for jersey numbers. Nobody from this site was at the game.