49ers coach tries to stay mum on McCaffrey injury, fails

On Friday afternoon, San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan addressed the media for the first time since running back Christian McCaffrey acquired his first injury designation of the season — a calf injury that saw him a limited participant in Thursday’s practice.

Shanahan looked as displeased as ever, saying outright, “I’m not going to say anything about Christian or any of our players’ injuries.”

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But questions about the Niners’ best player poured in nonetheless, and Shanahan actually shared quite a few things. For one, McCaffrey did not practice on Friday and “did a limited amount of stuff in practice yesterday.”

According to longtime 49ers beat reporter Matt Maiocco, McCaffrey was not with his teammates for their pre-practice routine. Instead, he was spotted on the side field with athletic trainer Mike Sola, who’s listed as “Director, Reconditioning” on the team’s official site.

Basically, every other reporter at the part of practice accessible to the media reported the same thing, save the SF Standard’s David Lombardi, who shared whatever this was: “If we’re going to be fixated on details from the practice window, Christian McCaffrey — wearing a helmet — ran over to the pre-practice greeting scrum and engaged in a long customized handshake with Fred Warner. Typically, players who are only rehabbing don’t wear helmets and don’t participate in the greeting scrum.”

Shanahan, who initially was not going to address players’ injuries, also said McCaffrey’s injury is a new injury that “came up yesterday.”

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A follow-up question from the press corps dug a bit deeper into this: “You said Wednesday in relation to Christian’s offseason there was concern. I think you said ‘arthritis’ — I don’t know if you meant ‘tendinitis’ — would still be there and that wasn’t an issue. Is that part of what’s going on?”

Shanahan, smiling and laughing for some reason, shot back: “I didn’t know arthritis and tendinitis were different, but that’s just my lack of education on being a doctor. No, it’s just got a questionable deal with his calf.”

The Niners’ ninth-year head coach used the word questionable three times during the press conference before McCaffrey was ultimately listed as such on the injury report. It is the same designation he had last season going into Week 1 before missing half the season.

McCaffrey also spoke to the media on Friday and said virtually the same thing he said last year before missing the first two months of the season: “Nothing serious, I feel great about where I’m at. Unfortunately, you have the injury history that I have, you know, sometimes when you don’t practice, things get blown out of proportion. Like I said, I feel great.”

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Finally, asked whether McCaffrey would work out on Saturday, Shanahan replied, “I’m not sure. I haven’t asked that.”

McCaffrey’s seemingly insignificant limited practice designation Thursday sent the national NFL media into a bit of a frenzy on Friday morning ahead of the Niners’ final practice before facing the Seahawks in Seattle on Sunday to open their 2025 season.

Every media outlet seemed afraid to get McCaffrey’s injury wrong (as everyone did in 2024), leading to a host of caveats and hedged conjecture. Based on Friday’s press conference, the Athletic’s fantasy football analyst, Andy Behrens, seems to have gotten the closest to spot on: “Any injury note attached to CMC is a screaming alarm.”

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