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George Kittle and Fred Warner Both Miss Wednesday's 49ers Practice

This is something to monitor.

Grant Cohn

January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) and tight end George Kittle (85) celebrate after defeating the Green Bay Packers in a 2024 NFC divisional round game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) and tight end George Kittle (85) celebrate after defeating the Green Bay Packers in a 2024 NFC divisional round game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
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This is something to monitor.

George Kittle (ribs) and Fred Warner (ankle) both missed Wednesday's practice, which means it's a distinct possibility that one or both of them will miss Sunday's home game against the Arizona Cardinals.

Both Kittle and Warner suffered their injuries this past Sunday during the 49ers' 30-13 win over the New England Patriots. Kittle returned to the game and Warner did not. But at Wednesday's practice, Warner at least showed up and ran 30-yard sprints at 75-percent speed on a side field. Kittle couldn't even do that much. So it seems that Warner might be more likely to play on Sunday than Kittle.

So far this season, Kittle has had to leave three of the 49ers' four games for at least a few plays. In Week 2, he had to leave the game to get an I.V. due to leg cramps. In Week 3, he sat out the entire game with a hamstring injury. And in Week 4, he injured his rib. At nearly 31-years-old, it's fair to wonder if he's beginning to break down as all athletes eventually do.

Meanwhile, Warner has missed just one game in his seven-season career. So if he can physically play on Sunday, I expect he will.

But he couldn't physically play in the second half against the Patriots. And on Wednesday, as he ran sprints next to linebacker Dee Winters who also has an ankle injury, Warner ran decidedly slower than Winters. Which suggests that Warner's injury could be worse than Winters'.

Stay tuned.

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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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