Defensive tackle Tommie Harris was in uniform for practice Wednesday. That’s a step up from Monday, when he was in shorts and a T-shirt and didn’t play for the second straight exhibition.
With Harris’ surgically repaired hamstring not fully healed, the inescapable question is when will the two-time Pro Bowl lineman be ready to play? Saturday against San Francisco? The regular-season opener Sept. 9 at San Diego?
Coach Lovie Smith said there’s “some benefit” to Harris playing in the preseason, “but we want to make sure he’s 100 percent before we put him on the field.”
Is there a possibility Harris will not be ready for San Diego?
“A possibility? Sure,” Smith said. “He’s making progress. Right now we’re being cautious; we won’t take chances.
“I’ll just say he’s getting better every day. He had a good practice [Wednesday] and we’ll make those decisions [regarding the San Francisco game] a little later in the week.”
Receiver Mark Bradley (knee), cornerback Trumaine McBride (foot) and tackle John Tait (ankle) practiced Wednesday after sitting out the Colts game. Defensive end Israel Idonije (ankle) and tackle John St. Clair (shoulder) did not practice but are expected to play Saturday.
Receiver Brandon Rideau left Monday’s game with an ankle injury and is likely to miss the 49ers game.
Blitz happy
Northern Illinois coach Joe Novak got his coaching start in the late 1960s as an assistant at Miami (Ohio), helping coach linebackers. One he remembers vividly was a feisty freshman named Jerry Angelo.
“Jerry was real aggressive,” Novak recalled. “All he ever wanted to do was blitz. We had a hand signal for blitzing and after we’d send in the defense, Jerry would be there signaling ‘blitz’ back at us.”
Quick study
Linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer is working on his MBA at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, which requires some schedule balancing. Hillenmeyer’s midterm exams fell during Super Bowl week.
“That was a little dicey,” he said. “One of the courses let me take the exam late and the other one put all the weight of the grade on my final. That was some pressure.”
Hillenmeyer, a Vanderbilt grad, has some ideas what he’ll gain from his studies:
“I’ll probably focus on entrepreneurship. If you play in the NFL long enough, you have a lot of business opportunities, some good, some not so good.
“That’s what I’m in ‘business’ for, so I can sort through them.”
