49ers and Titans have several scuffles at joint practice

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The San Francisco 49ers and Tennessee Titans didn't take long to get on each other's nerves at a joint practice.

A scuffle broke following the first play of 11-on-11 drills on Tuesday with the physical play and animosity only amping up from there.

“The energy was hot from the first play,” Titans rookie receiver Carnell Tate said.

Tate was on the receiving end of that early on when San Francisco cornerback Renardo Green threw him to the ground following a catch near the sideline, prompting players on both teams to rush together and exchange words and shoves.

That was one of several scuffles that broke out in the first 10 minutes of team drills at the joint practice, leading to four players eventually getting kicked out of the practice for throwing punches.

Tennessee offensive linemen Austin Deculus and Dan Moore Jr. both got kicked out of practice for throwing punches. San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan, who was mostly watching his offense on the other field, said he was told two of his defensive players also got kicked out.

“We’re not trying to fight and do all this other stuff,” Niners linebacker Fred Warner said. “We’re trying to play football and that’s what I had to try and tell the guys early on. I brought everybody together and told them like, ’We’re not going to get through today if we continue on this path. We got to play football.′ I think we kind of found our groove a little bit after some of that fiery business going on in the beginning."

Most of the issues came on the field where the 49ers defense was facing the Titans offense. San Francisco defenders took Tennessee players to the ground on at least a few occasions, leading to the physical play.

After the early sparks, tempers calmed down later in practice and both teams were able to get in the work they wanted.

“It's part of a joint practice,” said Tennessee linebacker Cedric Gray, who noticed one big pileup on the other field. “You got to love it. I think we all just wanted to come out here, be a little feisty. ... It was just good to get out here and kind of have that and just create those dog moments and those team fighting moments.”

Shanahan and Titans head coach Robert Saleh spent most of the practice watching the Niners offense going against the Titans defense, letting their coordinators handle the other field. Saleh enjoyed being back in the Bay Area after spending last season in his second stint as defensive coordinator for San Francisco. He had previously held that job from 2017-20 in Shanahan's first four seasons as head coach.

The two friends spent a portion of practice side by side behind the Tennessee secondary.

“It's good to pick his brain,” Saleh said. "Looking forward to talking to him tonight after we both watch the tape just to see what he sees. He’s always been, a mentor in that regard. He's an elite teacher and I'm all ears when he starts talking."

Saleh said the Titans will give most of their starters some playing time Thursday night while the 49ers will use mostly reserves.

Saleh said he would like all four quarterbacks to get some time if possible but wasn't sure how long the starters will get.

“I don’t want to put a number on it, but it’s not just a series,” he said.

The Niners will go mostly with backups. Quarterback Brock Purdy played in just one preseason game last summer and two in 2024. He and the other starters could get some game action in one of the final two exhibition games.

Stars Nick Bosa and Christian McCaffrey remain out for the 49ers with what are believed to be minor injuries.

Bosa has missed more than a week with soreness and tendinitis in his surgically repaired right knee.

“It’s a pretty normal thing with ACLs,” Shanahan said. “Just talking to our guys, they say it happens about 90% of the guys we’ve had. So it’s a normal thing, so we got to be smart here know week to week. But no concerns about it being any more than that.”

McCaffrey has been sidelined this week with what the team has called “tightness.” Shanahan said it's mostly a precaution to prevent something more significant.

“Christian’s a guy who needs to get prepared for Week 1, but also we’re pretty confident what he’s done before this and we’re confident with what he’s done in these two weeks,” Shanahan said. “We just want to make sure that we don’t make it something to be concerned about.”

The 49ers did get some good news on the injury front with receiver Mike Evans returning after missing about a week with a strained quadriceps. Evans mostly worked on individual drills.

Saleh said that DL John Franklin-Myers (lower back) and DT Jackie Marshall (oblique) could return next week.

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Tennessee Titans quarterback Cam Ward (1) looks to pass as fellow quarterback Will Levis (8) looks on during a joint NFL training camp practice with the San Francisco 49ers Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Tennessee Titans linebacker Cedric Gray speaks at a news conference after a joint practice with the San Francisco 49ers at the 49ers' NFL football training camp, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) runs during a joint NFL training camp practice with the Tennessee Titans Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, right, talks to Golden State Warriors gneral manager Mike Dunleavy Jr., during a joint NFL training camp practice with the Tennessee Titans Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Tennessee Titans head coach Robert Saleh speaks at a news conference after a joint practice with the San Francisco 49ers at the 49ers' NFL football training camp, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma plan to execute inmates Thursday in what would be the first time in nearly 16 years that three people are put to death on the same day in the United States.

The executions come as a small number of states, including the three with scheduled lethal injections Thursday, drive execution numbers in the United States.

“You look at the country as a whole, you’ve just got this little pocket of five or six states that are using the death penalty, executing people, and a small number of states that are still imposing new death sentences,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Maher said it is highly unusual to have three executions on one day, although it is largely a scheduling coincidence.

Eleven states executed a total of 47 people in 2025, the highest number since 2009. Florida accounted for most of the surge with 19 executions. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas each carried out five. Tennessee carried out three. Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arizona and Indiana each carried out two. Louisiana and Missouri each carried out one execution.

The 19 executions so far in 2026 have occurred in four states. Florida, which again leads the country, executed two inmates on the same day in July.

The last time three executions were held on the same day was Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death. Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was granted a reprieve and prison officials in Alabama had problems with the IV line.

Tennessee plans to execute Anthony Darrell Hines three months after the attempted lethal injection of another inmate was called off because of problems inserting an IV. The aborted execution put a spotlight on issues states have sometimes had in establishing IV lines during lethal injections.

“All eyes really are on Tennessee at this moment because of the problem that happened,” Maher said.

During the attempted execution of Tony Carruthers in May, the IV team established a primary line right away but then worked for more than an hour trying to insert a required backup line. The execution was ultimately called off and Carruthers was given a one-year reprieve.

Hines, 66, has seized on the problems with the previous execution, saying his health issues — including two strokes that left him partially paralyzed — increase the risk of difficulties at his execution. He has unsuccessfully asked the governor and courts to intervene, claiming the doctor who oversaw that execution was unqualified and is likely to botch his execution, as well.

Gov. Bill Lee has declined to take any action on Hines’ requests, and last week the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled against a stay of his execution. The state has declined to say whether the same doctor will preside over the upcoming execution, but the court noted that Hines had not proved that doctor was unqualified.

Hines was convicted of stabbing Catherine Jean Jenkins to death in 1985 while the 54-year-old was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs. He was sentenced to death in 1986, won an appeal for a new sentencing hearing, and was again sentenced to death in 1989.

Alabama is scheduled to execute Jeremy Williams, 42, by lethal injection for the 2021 rape and murder of a 5-year-old Georgia girl.

Williams, who pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland, has asked for his death sentence to be carried out.

Prosecutors said Williams raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform oral sex on him. Williams filmed his attack on the girl and kept her body to continue to abuse, prosecutors said.

In 2022, Williams also was charged with the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska.

“This man left a trail of destruction of children,” Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey said.

About 10% of executed inmates are so-called volunteers who drop appeals, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, but most of those have been on death row longer. The time between Williams’ 2024 conviction and his scheduled lethal injection is unusually brief, Maher said.

It will be Alabama’s first execution of the year if it goes forward. A nitrogen gas execution was halted in June after a federal judge ruled the method unconstitutional.

Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend.

If the lethal injection goes forward, he will be the third person executed in Oklahoma this year.

Prosecutors said Olimpia Fisher, 43, had been making plans to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her in one eye and then waited about eight minutes as she screamed for help before firing the fatal shot into her other eye.

Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-1 last month against recommending clemency for Cuesta-Rodriguez. Cuesta-Rodriguez’s attorneys had asked the board to recommend he serve life in prison without parole, saying he had a difficult childhood and suffered from brain damage, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression with psychotic episodes.

But Cuesta-Rodriguez told the board that he did not want clemency. He said he wanted Fisher’s two daughters to know that he regretted what happened.

“I can’t have been in my right mind to have done something so horrific,” he said through a Spanish-language translator. “I have not been able to find any sense in all this.”

Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas. Loller contributed to this report from Nashville.

This Aug. 18, 2025, photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, who was sentenced to death for the 2003 fatal shooting of his girlfriend. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)

This undated photo, courtesy of the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), shows death row inmate Anthony Darrell Hines at an unknown location in Tennessee. (TDOC Communications via AP)

FILE - This Oct. 9, 2014, file photo shows the gurney in the the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)