Sherman to make 49ers' preseason debut vs. Colts

San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman is excited to play in his first game since November.

Sherman, who has been plagued by a tweaked hamstring in training camp, has been sidelined from game action since sustaining a ruptured right Achilles last season. He'll face former Stanford teammate Andrew Luck and the Colts in Indianapolis on Saturday.

"I'm not concerned about how (the injuries are) going to respond," Sherman said, via the San Jose Mercury News. "I'm more concerned about my game shape and making sure I can still go every single play, because I haven't played in eight months. ... It's important just for defensive-continuity standpoint, everybody knowing where people are going to be on game day. You don't want the first time you communicate with somebody else to be with live bullets out there."

Sherman also will get a chance to knock off some rust and perhaps change the narrative after a video surfaced on him getting burned by teammate Marquise Goodwin in a 1-on-1 drill.

"That was a great coaching point," Sherman said. "At the end of the day, I'm not concerned about the outside world and 'Oh, man, he got beat in practice.' Like, I have been beat a ton in practice. I have been beat probably thousands of times in practice. But the amount of times I'm beat on a Sunday with the lights on is very limited because in practice you're working, you're working your craft, trying to figure out what you're going to do.

"That's like you guys (the media) putting out an article that's a rough draft and putting it out for everybody to see. It's like, 'Hey, this is a rough draft. Yes, it has some typos, some mistakes, some notes, some stuff that doesn't look right -- the wording is off, no commas, no periods, yada, yada, yada. But this is a rough draft. I'm sorry that you saw it before I put out the final product.' What we see on Sunday is the final product, so I think you get kind of lost in that. You get lost in practice reps and say, 'Oh, my God, did you see what happened in practice?' Well, it looks good, it sounds good, but there's a whole lot going on in practice."

Sherman signed a three-year, $39 million free-agent contract with the 49ers just two days after he was released by the Seattle Seahawks.

The 30-year-old Sherman helped the Seahawks win a Super Bowl title following the 2013 season and led the club back to the championship game the following year.

Sherman was a fifth-round pick (No. 154 overall) out of Stanford in 2011. He has 32 interceptions and 99 passes defensed on his career.