The San Francisco 49ers decided to release a locker room leader on Friday, parting ways with linebacker NaVorro Bowman. The news came as a surprise, but given his potential upcoming decrease in playing time, maybe it was not quite so shocking.

That being said, it caught players off guard when head coach Kyle Shanahan announced the news to the team prior to practice on Friday. I imagine plenty are still soaking it in, but we have some early reactions to the news. We had veterans like Joe Staley and Daniel Kilgore talking about all the time they spent together. We also had rookies like Reuben Foster talking about what they learned from him.

We’ll keep an eye out for more reactions, but here are a few of them in video and tweet form.

#49ers Joe Staley upon hearing of NaVorro Bowman's release: "Everybody was pretty surprised." pic.twitter.com/3XVM2geEPh — Mindi Bach (@MBachNBCS) October 13, 2017

Kept it Real wit me from the start #MON5T3R A post shared by Ray Ray Armstrong (@boom_king54) on Oct 13, 2017 at 1:40pm PDT

#49ers DeForest Buckner on #Bowman:

Having Bo out there, you felt him on the field even if you didn’t see him. — Cam Inman (@CamInman) October 13, 2017