One of the strangest injury sagas of the late NFL offseason and early regular season has been that of Christian McCaffrey . The San Francisco 49ers star running back and the reigning NFL Offensive Player of the Year has been dealing with a calf issue since early August.
While the calf’s proximity to the dreaded Achilles always makes them a bit more of a worry than other ailments, all the reports coming out of the 49ers camp for the longest time were essentially a rehash Aaron Rodgers ‘ infamous “R-E-L-A-X” quote from 2014.
However, while Rodgers backed up his statement by leading his team to an 11-2 record, a Conference Championship appearance, and his second NFL MVP award after telling everyone to relax, the 49ers have done the opposite.
Despite all the talk that McCaffrey was fine and his preseason and training camp absences were precautionary, when push came to shove, the team announced on the day of their season opener that CMC would be inactive. And now, even his chances of playing in Week 2 seem extremely dubious, though he did attend practice on both Wednesday and Thursday. While he was limited on Wednesday, his designation for Thursday remains unclear.
Here, then, are all the latest updates on CMC and his injury, which, worryingly for his fantasy managers and the 49ers faithful, seems to grow in severity by the day.
The injury first came to the NFL world’s attention in early August, when it was reported that McCaffrey would miss the entire preseason with a calf strain. At the time, CMC said that if those preseason games had been regular season games, he would have been suiting up, and the feeling was that he’d be fine for Week 1.
A week later, in mid-August, CMC was on a side field doing individual work, supporting the assumption that his preseason absence was more precautionary than necessary. On September 3, reports came out that the running back had returned to practice, and there was even more confidence that he wouldn’t miss any regular season action.
He was then listed as a limited participant in practice every day in the week leading up to their MNF season opener against the New York Jets . Late in the week, on Friday and Sunday, both general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan expressed confidence that he would play.
