49ers Place Richard Sherman on Injured Reserve with Calf Injury

The hits keep coming.
The 49ers will place cornerback Richard Sherman on the Injured Reserve List on Wednesday, according to the NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, who did not report the exact injury, but said it’s related to Sherman’s leg.
The #49ers are placing CB Richard Sherman on IR today, sources say. He’ll be sidelined at least three weeks. Exact injury unclear but am told it’s a leg issue.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) September 16, 2020
UPDATE: The injury is related to Sherman's calf.
Sherman joins wide receiver Deebo Samuel on IR -- Samuel has a broken foot and will be out until Week 4 at the earliest. Sherman will be out until Week 5 at the earliest, although it’s unclear when he’ll return.
Sherman, 32, ruptured his Achilles in 2017 and has had surgeries on both Achilles tendons during his career. During training camp this year, Sherman appeared to injure his ankle during warmups with the other defensive backs when he tripped over his feet. He stayed on the ground for three or four minutes and seemed concerned. John Lynch, Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh all walked over to check on Sherman -- they seemed concerned. But Sherman popped up eventually and insisted on finishing practice. He clearly was in pain, but he gutted it out.
No idea if that incident is related to the reason the 49ers placed him on IR, or if something else happened to Sherman.
Either way, the 49ers have serious injury issues at two positions -- cornerback and wide receiver.
Week 2 against the Jets, the 49ers’ starting cornerbacks likely will be Emmanuel Moseley and Ahkello Witherspoon. Not ideal. And their starting wide receivers probably will be Kendrick Bourne and Dante Pettis for the second week in a row, while Mohamed Sanu likely will become the No. 3 receiver. Again, not ideal. Plus, George Kittle likely will play through a sprained knee. He may be ineffective.
The 49ers can’t afford to lose to the Jets and start the season 0-2. And they shouldn’t lose to the Jets and start the season 0-2. But without Sherman and Samuel, who knows what will happen?

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.
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