Last summer, I wrote that it wasn’t looking good for Raheem Mostert to make the Niners roster, despite two years as an solid NFL kick returner, since his official position (running back) was overloaded and he wasn’t a four-core special teams player. Plus, he was fighting a soft-tissue injury in training camp, which was horrible timing for a guy scraping along at the bottom of various NFL rosters.
His situation looks much better today, despite an MCL sprain that ended his season in late November. Coach Shanahan and ST coordinator Richard Hightower found ways to use him both as a running back (6 carries for 30 yards) and, most importantly, as a dominant gunner on the punt return team, with 8 tackles in 11 games.