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Nick Wagoner, ESPN Workers AuthorSep 16, 2024, 07:24 PM ET
Close- Nick Wagoner is an NFL reporter at ESPN. Nick has lined the San Francisco 49ers and the NFL at ESPN since 2016, having beforehand lined the St. Louis Rams for 12 years, together with three years (2013 to 2015) at ESPN. In his 10 years with the corporate, Nick has led ESPN’s protection of the Niners’ 2019 Tremendous Bowl run, Colin Kaepernick’s protest, the Rams making Michael Sam the primary brazenly homosexual participant drafted to the NFL, Sam’s subsequent pursuit of a roster spot and the staff’s relocation and stadium saga. You may comply with Nick by way of Twitter @nwagoner
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Already with out operating again Christian McCaffrey for at least the next three games, the San Francisco 49ers may even not have receiver Deebo Samuel for the following couple of weeks.
Niners coach Kyle Shanahan stated Monday that Samuel strained his calf late in Sunday’s 23-17 loss to the Minnesota Vikings and would “in all probability miss a few weeks.”
In response to Shanahan, Samuel suffered the damage with just a little greater than two minutes left within the recreation.
“He informed me he thinks he did it when he caught, I believe it was the third to final play,” Shanahan stated. “That they had a blitz down within the purple zone. He caught the recent route breaking in. He says he thinks he did it on that play.”
With 2:18 left within the fourth quarter, Niners quarterback Brock Purdy threw brief to the precise facet to Samuel for a 2-yard acquire. Tv replays confirmed Samuel grimacing and transferring slowly to the sideline favoring his proper leg simply earlier than the two-minute warning.
After lacking one snap, Samuel reentered the sport and caught a deflected backward go that went down as a lack of 9 yards on San Francisco’s closing offensive play earlier than kicking a discipline aim. Samuel completed the sport with eight catches for 110 yards and two carries for negative-10 yards.
With Samuel out, the Niners might be lacking their two most versatile offensive gamers. McCaffrey is on injured reserve with Achilles tendonitis and should miss a minimum of the following three video games.
“Whenever you lose actual good gamers it is all the time robust,” Shanahan stated. “However it occurs all around the league and it is an enormous a part of this league and an enormous a part of this recreation. We have got to take care of it.”
For Samuel, it is the most recent in a line of irritating, short-term accidents which have price him video games all through his profession. Samuel has by no means performed a full season since arriving in 2019, lacking time with groin, foot, hamstring, ankle, knee and shoulder accidents.
Because it stands, San Francisco has a gaggle of receivers that features Brandon Aiyuk, Jauan Jennings, Jacob Cowing, Chris Conley and Ronnie Bell on the lively roster to fill the void left by Samuel. The 49ers additionally nonetheless have an open roster spot from inserting McCaffrey on IR.
Samuel was coming off a powerful coaching camp and Shanahan preferred what he noticed from him in two video games earlier than the damage.
“I assumed he had some actual good catches,” Shanahan stated. “Deebo needed to form of climb the ladder a few instances and made a pair spectacular caches and I assumed he performed certainly one of his higher video games versus the Jets, so I do not know if I would say certainly one of his higher ones in comparison with others however I assumed he performed actual properly.”