Azeez Al-Shaair is Day to Day with an Elbow Sprain

Which means he might play this Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.

Grant Cohn | Dec 13, 2021

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San Francisco 49ers

Azeez Al-Shaair and the 49ers just dodged a huge bullet.

Al-Shaair has an elbow sprain, according to head coach Kyle Shanahan, and is day to day. Which means he might play this Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.

When Al-Shaair injured his elbow in the second half against the Cincinnati Bengals, it looked much worse. He stayed on the ground for a couple minutes. It seemed like he might have suffered a torn bicep or a dislocated elbow — something that would end his season. Fortunately for him and the team, the injury is rather minor.

This is great news for the 49ers, because Al-Shaair has been one of their most valuable players this season.

The 49ers signed Al-Shaair as an undrafted free agent in 2019 and developed him slowly. That season when the 49ers went to the Super Bowl, he wasn’t a starter. He hardly even played.

The 49ers had a historically great defense that season, but since then it has declined a bit because it lost DeForest Buckner and Robert Saleh. But this season, Al-Shaair has given the 49ers the kind of player they haven’t had since Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman.

Al-Shaair became a full-time starter Week 1 this season when Dre Greenlaw injured his groin, and was an immediate, stark upgrade over Greenlaw, who’s a solid player. Al-Shaair simply is a difference maker. This season, he arguably has been the 49ers’ best linebacker — even better than All Pro Fred Warner.

And now the 49ers will have both of them for the run to the playoffs.

Not too shabby.

Published Dec 13, 2021

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.