Charvarius Ward has a Groin Injury

The 49ers beat the Seahawks on Sunday, but they lost their No. 1 cornerback Charvarius Ward to a groin injury that could sideline him for a few weeks.

Ward pulled his groin on the first drive of the game. He sprinted downfield to break up and almost intercept a deep pass intended for D.K. Metcalf. Then on the next play, Ward pulled up lame, left the game and watched it while riding a stationary bike.

Without Ward, the 49ers played their young cornerbacks -- Deommodore Lenoir, Ambry Thomas and Samuel Womack. And they performed surprisingly well against Metcalf, Tyler Lockett and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. But that's partially because the Seahawks played their backup quarterback, Drew Lock, who's not good.

Eventually, the 49ers will play a team with a quality quarterback who has quality receivers, and then the 49ers absolutely will need Ward. So they need to be extremely careful with him. He had groin issues in training camp, so this could be related. Plus groin injuries can linger if players attempt to return too soon.

At this point in the season, the 49ers are so good, they're expected to win every week. So the real story for them is the players they lose. Attrition. We know the 49ers are better than everyone else right now, but how many more key players will go down this season, and how many will miss playoff games?

In the 49ers' win over the Seahawks, they lost Ward, Javon Hargrave and Oren Burks. So the win came at quite a cost.