After a lengthy wait to ascend to the 49ers’ starting center position and subsequent lengthy absence, Daniel Kilgore‘s re-emerged on the active roster after being activated from the PUP list, Cam Inman of the San Jose Mercury News reports.
The team cut linebacker Shayne Skov to make room for Kilgore, who hasn’t played since breaking his leg in an Oct. 2014 game.
A fifth-year player who arrived in San Francisco as a fifth-round pick, Kilgore didn’t start until the 2014 season — when he started seven games before that lower left leg injury halted his career — due to Jonathan Goodwin serving as the 49ers’ center from 2011-13.
The 28-year-old Kilgore needed additional surgery, which involved 12 screws being inserted, in June to fully recover from that malady. And he returns to a 49ers lineup that’s starkly different than what he left, with Colin Kaepernick out and numerous veterans having either signed elsewhere, been traded or retired.
Marcus Martin hasn’t been on Kilgore’s level as a snapper in replacing him, but the 22-year-old’s been durable, having started the past 19 games since Kilgore went down. Inman notes Martin and Kilgore could rotate snaps Sunday.