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49ers LB Dre Greenlaw Will Play Against the Miami Dolphins

The 49ers' chances of winning just increased significantly.

Grant Cohn

Jan 28, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; Detroit Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams (9) runs with the ball for a touchdown San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw (57) during the first half of the NFC Championship football game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Jan 28, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; Detroit Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams (9) runs with the ball for a touchdown San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw (57) during the first half of the NFC Championship football game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
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MIAMI -- The 49ers' chances of winning just increased significantly.

Linebacker Dre Greenlaw officially is active for the 49ers' Week 16 road game against the Miami Dolphins. Greenlaw left last week's loss to the Rams at halftime with a knee injury and limped out of the locker room afterward. But it seems he simply was sore after not playing football for nearly a year.

Greenlaw made his season debut last week after tearing his Achilles in the Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs. And while the calf connected to his surgically-repaired Achilles was noticeably smaller than his other calf, he played like he never missed any time. He played 27 of the 30 defensive snaps in the first half and recorded a whopping eight tackles before leaving the game.

In one sense, the 49ers need Greenlaw to play today because the recently suspended linebacker De'Vondre Campbell for the rest of the season without pay because he refused to enter last week's loss to the Rams after Greenlaw went down. The 49ers had benched Campbell that day in favor of Greenlaw and Campbell was upset. So the 49ers are thin at the position.

But in another sense, the 49ers really don't need Greenlaw to play today because this game is meaningless. They have less than one percent chance to make the playoffs. Sitting Greenlaw and protecting him from further injury would be smart considering he's had so many injury issues in his career and he's critical to their future.

Let's see if they made the right call.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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