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Fred Warner Says the 49ers Have to Protect Dre Greenlaw from Himself

The 49ers didn't just lose a meaningless game on Sunday. They lost Dre Greenlaw in a meaningless game, which makes the loss so much worse.

Grant Cohn

September 18, 2022; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) and linebacker Dre Greenlaw (57) tackle Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9) during the third quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
September 18, 2022; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) and linebacker Dre Greenlaw (57) tackle Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9) during the third quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
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The 49ers didn't just lose a meaningless game on Sunday. They lost Dre Greenlaw in a meaningless game, which makes the loss so much worse.

The 49ers officially were eliminated from the playoffs just before kickoff. And yet, Dre Greenlaw played anyway even though he's less than a year removed from a Achilles tear. The 49ers didn't protect him. As a result, he injured his calf in the first quarter of the 49ers' 29-17 loss to the Dolphins and did not return.

"That’s my guy," Fred Warner said about Greenlaw after the game. "I love going out there to battle with him, but at the end of the day, it’s about saving Dre from himself sometimes too. He’s coming back from a major injury. Everybody looks at last game and how great he was, but that’s not normal, he’s dealing with something significant, so we have to protect him from himself sometimes."

TRANSLATION: Kyle Shanahan needs to protect Greenlaw from himself. That's the head coach's job.

Greenlaw made his return from an Achilles' tear just last week against the Rams in a do-or-die game which the 49ers lost 12-6. Greenlaw did everything in his power to come back just in time to try to help save the season. And in the first half against the Rams, he was the best player on the field. But he played so hard, he injured his knee and missed the second half. In retrospect, he wasn't fully ready to play. Now he has a calf injury, too. Which means the 49ers need to shut him down for the rest of the season.


"He’s down," Warner said. "Dre is built the right way; he wants to be out there, he wants to help us win games. That’s my brother at the end of the day, like I said, we have to hold him back from hurting himself more.”

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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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