49ers need to put extracurriculars behind them, Chargers joint practice the measuring stick

The San Francisco 49ers will be guests in the Los Angeles Chargers’ El Segungo facility this week for their second joint practice of the preseason.They’d better be on better behavior than when they welcomed the Tennessee Titans last week … by instigating a half dozen skirmishes, including a handful in the first few snaps.The two-week countdown to the Niners’ departure for down under officially begins at the conclusion of Tuesday’s joint practice.The regular season is right around the corner.It’s time to put the extracurriculars behind them and turn the focus to football.“We’ll see if we can go out there and have a more composed practice and play a little bit better and play faster and do some different things that we want to do,” defensive coordinator Raheem Morris said.

“I think it’s just a steady process to get to that first game.”Morris’ unit was responsible for most of the hubbub last week.The Niners’ defense came out firing on all cylinders — too many cylinders — that led to time-wasting dustups and, more consequentially, two players eventually being tossed out for throwing punches.That’s a pair of potentially productive practices gone down the drain.“You don’t really care about scuffles.

You just hate losing guys,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said.“The player loses all the reps for the day and then your position’s down for the whole day, so that usually can be a chain reaction to other guys.

That’s why we don’t want that to happen.”Some sparring is inevitable.After all, this is football.

Violence is the point.But every second spent clearing the air after a scuffle is another snap lost in some of the most valuable situations for a coach to evaluate his football team in the preseason.“You want them to have their edge, but there’s a certain amount of work that you want to be able to get done,” Morris said.“You want to have the ability to take it to that edge and walk that line but be able to play the gam...