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Dre Greenlaw's Sideline Shove vs. the Cardinals Costs the 49ers $100k

This was avoidable.

Grant Cohn

Feb 8, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw (57) during a press conference before Super Bowl LVIII at Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
Feb 8, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw (57) during a press conference before Super Bowl LVIII at Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
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This was avoidable.

The NFL just fined the 49ers $100,000 because Dre Greenlaw shoved Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride out of bounds last Sunday. Greenlaw was inactive because he's on the Physically Unable to Perform List with an Achilles injury, and inactive players are not allowed to make physical contact with an opponent.

The altercation happened in the third quarter. McBride blocked 49ers cornerback Charvarius Ward out of bounds and into the 49ers' bench, Ward grabbed McBride's facemask and Greenlaw pushed McBride away. The NFL fined all three players for this scuffle, but the biggest fine by far went to the 49ers for allowing Greenlaw to get involved.

In retrospect, Greenlaw should not have been on the sideline in the first place. He's inactive. He's not in uniform. He can't play. And he's recovering from an Achilles' injury. He should be sitting in a luxury suite eating popcorn, not standing on the sideline getting into fights.

Greenlaw tore his Achilles in February while running onto the field during the Super Bowl. He had been dealing with Achilles tendonitis for months before it finally ruptured. The 49ers have said they expect him to return at some point this season but still have not given a firm timetable for his return. It doesn't seem like he's particularly close to being activated to the 53-man roster.

At this point, the goal has to be to get Greenlaw back for December or possibly the playoffs. In the meantime, get him off the sideline.

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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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