All 49ers

The 49ers Hope to Get Christian McCaffrey Back for Week 10

Finally, the 49ers have given an actual timeline for Christian McCaffrey's return.

Grant Cohn

Sep 29, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) walks off the field after the game against the New England Patriots at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
Sep 29, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) walks off the field after the game against the New England Patriots at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images / Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
In this story:

Finally, the 49ers have given an actual timeline for Christian McCaffrey's return.

He won't play Sunday night against the Dallas Cowboys. But after that game, the 49ers will have their Bye week, which means he will have two more weeks to recover and prepare before potentially making his season debut Week 10 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

"Christian's still progressing through his rehab," Kyle Shanahan said Monday on a conference call. "He hasn't had any setbacks, so it's been all good news so far. I'd be surprised to get him back this week. But hopefully the Bye week will go well and have a much better chance there right after the Bye week."

The 49ers have to be smart with McCaffrey. He's at risk of rupturing his Achilles. That's why he's sitting out and why he went to Germany for special treatments unavailable in America. He's trying to avoid a catastrophic injury and preserve his career.

If McCaffrey returns Week 10 and tears his Achilles in November or December, he most likely will most next season. And the 49ers can't afford him to miss 2025 as well as most of 2024.

The 49ers already have lost Brandon Aiyuk for the season. If they lose to the Cowboys -- which is possible, they lost to the Rams -- they'll be 3-5. In that case, would it be fair to ask McCaffrey to rush back and risk injury to save a season that might be doomed one way or the other?

Stay tuned.

Download and follow The Best 49ers Podcast.

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.

Home/News