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49ers Finally Get Encouraging Update on Complicated Christian McCaffrey Injury
Christian McCaffrey has missed the first four games of the season for the San Francisco 49ers due to bilateral Achilles tendinitis, meaning he's suffering from the issue in both tendons. He was designated as out shortly before the team's Monday night Week 1 game and went on injured reserve shortly after.
The rushing yardage leader from 2023 traveled all the way to Germany for consultation on his ailment this season, with, "early November," the most commonly cited timeline ahead of the most recent update from ESPN's Adam Schefter. That update, which came out Saturday night, is that McCaffrey's Achilles injury did not flare up after on-field work at Niners practice this week.
Schefter reports McCaffrey could reasonably make his return October 20 against the Kansas City Chiefs if he continues trending in this direction. That game will be a home contest for the Niners. Even if he's ready, Schefter did suggest the Niners could move extremely cautiously:
"But even more reasonably, the 49ers could opt to sit McCaffrey for both those games, and then give him the bye week to continue to ramp up for their next game at Tampa Bay on Nov. 10," Schefter said.
Meantime, Jordan Mason has filled in as the volume back with a league-leading 91 attempts going into Week 5. He's averaging 111.8 yards per game and has scored three touchdowns this year.
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Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.