George Kittle addresses Christian McCaffrey return as fresh injury setback threatens to derail 49ers

Look away fantasy football fans because Christian McCaffrey may not be ready to make his season debut in Week 1 after all.

The San Francisco 49ers’ star running back played in just four games in the 2024 NFL season due to injury but was expected to be healthy coming into the 2025 campaign.

However, with the 49ers’ season opener against the Seattle Seahawks just a few days away, concerns arose when it was announced that McCaffrey was a limited participant in Thursday’s practice due to dealing with a calf injury.

Teammate and star tight end George Kittle spoke about how eager CMC was to get back onto the gridiron just hours before he was listed on the Niners’ injury report.

“Yes he seems very excited,” Kittle said. “I mean, he’s been excited since OTAs.

“He’s been excited since literally the [last] season ended so I’m very, very much looking forward to being able to block for him and run routes next to him again.”

Having appeared to have recovered from his health issues that plagued him last season, the fact that the 29-year-old was listed as dealing with a calf ailment is a particular worry.

Of course, McCaffrey had sat out of 2024 training camp with a calf injury, later diagnosed as bilateral Achilles tendinitis, which kept him out of action until Week 9.

Just four weeks later and disaster struck once again as he would suffer a season-ending knee injury.

This summer, though, McCaffrey was available and back on the field for the entirety of San Francisco’s off-season program, with the staff putting together an individualised training plan for training camp in order to safely limit his workload.

“Just trust the plan,” McCaffrey said July 27, via ESPN. “They’ve written up a really good plan. Just trust it and do everything I can every day to get better.”

Seeing his name get added to the injury report on Thursday night was somewhat of a surprise, with head coach Kyle Shanahan having only detailed when he knew that the 2023 Offensive Player of the Year was ready to return just one day prior.

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“Just having a player like him, to be the Offensive MVP one year and then really missed a whole next year, was really tough on him, tough on us,” Shanahan said.

“I knew Christian was back just once he told me he was healthy. It’s not like we were thinking he wouldn’t come back from it.”

“You know, you hope that stuff, the arthritis and everything, goes away, which it usually does. He was telling us that early in the offseason, so I felt pretty good about it.

“Christian’s not a liar. So, I didn’t think he was. Then we saw him early in OTAs, he looked like the guy we’ve always known and he’s continued that.”

Though the potential absence of McCaffrey against the Seahawks would undoubtedly be a huge blow for the Niners, the front office were active in the summer and fortunately brought in reinforcements to the running back room.

Fourth-year running back Brian Robinson Jr. was traded to the Santa Clara outfit from the Washington Commanders in August for a future sixth-round pick.

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Robinson Jr. has since been named the backup to McCaffrey, with sophomore Isaac Guerendo and Jordan James as the third- and fourth-string, respectively.

In light of this decision, Shanahan was also asked about Guerendo – who exclusively told talkSPORT last month that his star teammate is a “one-of-one” player who is a “game-changer” – and his decision to place Robinson Jr. above the 23-year-old in the depth chart.

”I don’t think that he’s gotten lost [in the rotation],” Shanahan said. “I just think he’s competing. (And) I think he was the third back last year, then a couple guys got hurt, and he got an opportunity, and I thought he did well in his opportunity.

“But that didn’t mean he was the first or second back all of a sudden. He had to come into camp and still compete with guys. He got hurt really early and missed a lot of time to compete.

“We brought Brian in. We’ve studied him over his career. And based off of that we put him ahead of him. That’s how we are starting out and we’ll see how it goes throughout the year.”

But with McCaffrey and Robinson Jr. having both seen their careers derailed by injury over the last few seasons, there may yet be ample opportunities for Guerendo to get on-field reps.

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