The 49ers won’t have wide receiver Deebo Samuel for their season opener against the Arizona Cardinals while he continues nursing a foot fracture he suffered in June. Samuel didn’t practice in the week leading up to the opener and was officially ruled out Friday.
It was always a touch optimistic to expect him back by Week 1. Sunday’s opener will be right up against the 12-week mark since his injury. The reported timeline for his return was 12-16 weeks. The 49ers’ training staff is relatively conservative and Jones fractures like the one Samuel suffered are a potentially tricky injury for a wide receiver.
The bigger issue for the 49ers with their leading wide receiver from last season was whether he’d miss extended time. His activation off the Non-Football Injury list indicated he wouldn’t need the full six weeks he would’ve been required to sit out had he started the season on the NFI.
While he won’t play Week 1, head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters after Friday’s practice that optimism remains about Samuel’s return early in the season.
“Because we believed he had a good chance to play this week. It didn’t go the way we hoped, but he’ll still be day-to-day going on that next week,” Shanahan said when asked why Samuel wasn’t placed on Injured Reserve once the season started. In that event he only would’ve had to miss three weeks under the adjusted rules forr the COVID-19 pandemic. “We felt there was a chance, so to make a decision that would be three weeks when we thought he did have a chance. We didn’t think that would be very smart, but we’ll see how next week goes. Also, it’s something with the rules that because it happened before training camp started, which is considered non-football injury, there was some reason we couldn’t do that, either.”
While a rule may have prevented them from placing Samuel on IR anyway, Shanahan saying they didn’t think Samuel would need a full three weeks out is a good sign for his availability moving forward.
San Francisco isn’t going to rush him back if they think it’ll affect his long-term availability. Foot injuries are also delicate because they’re generally hard to play through.
We don’t know for sure about Samuel’s status going into next week, but signs point to him returning sometime in the next couple weeks. The quicker the 49ers can get him back, the better it is for their offense. He was a key cog in that unit last season while racking up 802 receiving yards, 159 rushing yards and six total touchdowns. San Francisco can handle a game or two without Samuel. It’s harder to envision their long-term offensive success if he’s sidelined for more than a couple weeks.
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