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49ers RB Christian McCaffrey Explains Why He Didn’t Play Against the Jets

Spoiler: He's injured.

Grant Cohn

Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) watches from the sideline due to injury during the second quarter against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) watches from the sideline due to injury during the second quarter against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images / David Gonzales-Imagn Images
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SANTA CLARA -- Christian McCaffrey was asked about his Achilles tendonitis Wednesday in the 49ers locker room. Here's what he said.

Q: When did you feel you weren't going to be able to play against the Jets?

McCAFFREY: "On Monday morning, just moving around a little bit. I prepare every week to play. My mindset every week is I want to play. There have been weeks where I'll go the full week not even feeling good enough to do the walk-through, and then I wake up and my body is capable of a lot of cool things. Mentally, I'm always prepared to play in the game. But it was a group decision, a very tough one. I hate not playing. I look at it as a chess move and something that hopefully we can benefit from the rest of the season."

Q: Is it at all a remnant from the calf injury from the end of last season?

McCAFFREY: "It doesn't have anything to do with anything last season, no. It's just something I'm dealing with and I'll get right."

Q: Were there any days in practice last week when you didn't feel right or you felt worse than other days?

McCAFFREY: "When you don't feel right in practice, there's a difference between you don't feel right but maybe by Sunday you'll be good to go when you're working through some stuff and something is off. Mentally, I'm always prepared to play. My mindset is I'm going to play no matter what I'm going through physically. And then on game day, you have to make the decision."

Q: Are you expecting a similar process this week?

McCAFFREY: "My mentality is I'm playing this week. That's where I'm at. That's how I am every week. I'm not lying. As soon as a player says maybe I'll play, maybe I won't, that's not a good mentality to go into a week with when you're on the fence. I'm ready to go."

Q: Will the artificial turf be an issue?

McCAFFREY: "No. If you can't run on turf, you can't run on grass. If you can go, you can go."

Published
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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