The San Francisco 49ers could be without arguably the NFL’s best running back for their season-opener against the New York Jets. The team has listed Christian McCaffrey as questionable as he continues to work through calf/Achilles injuries.
McCaffrey, the reigning NFL Offensive Player of the Year, was a limited participant during Thursday and Friday’s practices.
McCaffrey had missed the bulk of training camp and all of the preseason after suffering a calf strain in early August. On top of the calf strain, head coach Kyle Shanahan revealed a bit more about the back’s injury, adding the Achilles as part of what McCaffrey is recovering from.
Given McCaffrey’s importance to the Niners offense, his status is a key storyline as the club gears up for the season opener against the Jets on “Monday Night Football.” Simply having McCaffrey out there at practice — albeit on a limited basis — is an encouraging sign that he’ll be full systems go to play out of the shoot.
“Christian’s doing great,” 49ers GM John Lynch told KNBR’s “Murph & Markus” on Friday, via NBC Sports Bay Area. “We got to finish the week here, but he looks like Christian — and that’s a good thing for us. He’s looked like Christian out here at practice. We had a bonus practice because of the Monday night [game] and he was there. He was out there yesterday. So Christian’s looking really good. Obviously, we want to see him progress through the week, but we had confidence that Christian would be ready and he’s doing very well. He takes tremendous care of his body and takes so much pride in that. He’ll be out there and ready to roll.”
The 28-year-old is coming off a tremendous 2023 season where he won Offensive Player of the Year honors while also helping San Francisco reach the Super Bowl. He led the league with 1,459 yards rushing and 2,023 total yards from scrimmage. McCaffrey’s 21 total touchdowns were also tied with Miami running back Raheem Mostert for the league lead.
