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49ers HC Kyle Shanahan Expects Christian McCaffrey to Play vs. Bucs

The 49ers better be careful.

Grant Cohn

Jul 25, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey answers questions at a press conference following Day 3 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Jul 25, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey answers questions at a press conference following Day 3 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images / D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
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Barring an unforeseen disaster, it seems as though Christian McCaffrey will make his season debut this Sunday when the 49ers face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The 49ers haven't yet released their game status report, but head coach Kyle Shanahan went on KNBR in San Francisco and broke news.

"He's been awesome these last two days," Shanahan said. "You never know about a setback or anything, but these two days have been great, and I expect to see him out there."

For what it's worth, former 49ers and Stanford cornerback Richard Sherman said McCaffrey told him that he could have played two weeks ago against the Dallas Cowboys but the 49ers held him out just to be overly cautious. If Sherman is correct, then it should be no surprise if McCaffrey plays on Sunday.

The question is how much will he play?

If McCaffrey essentially has been ready for weeks, I expect him to receive his usual workload. Kyle Shanahan never has been cautious with McCaffrey in a game before and he literally refuses to come off the field. Plus the Buccaneers probably think he'll have a playing-time limitation. Which is all the more reason for Shanahan to surprise them with a ton of McCaffrey. Don't be shocked if he gains 100 yards from scrimmage and scores at least one touchdown.

But if he plays too much and gets injured in his first game back, the season would be over.

The 49ers better be careful.

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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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