Deebo Samuel Injured the Back of his Knee

File this under "news that isn't great."

The 49ers' most important offensive weapon, Deebo Samuel, who signed a 3-year, $71.55 million extension with the team just a few weeks ago, injured the back of his knee during the preseason finale against the Houston Texans and will miss the next week of practice.

The 49ers are calling the injury a contusion, and saying they're merely being cautious with Samuel by keeping him out of practice this week. Theoretically, he'll be ready for the regular season opener on Sept. 11, and this injury will be a non-issue.

But it's interesting that Samuel suffered this injury during Thursday's night game, and head coach Kyle Shanahan never mentioned anything about it in his postgame press conference or his day-after conference call with Bay Area reporters. Either Shanahan just discovered Samuel's injury today, or he decided to let reporters find out about it on their own when Samuel wasn't at practice today.

Samuel sat out OTAs, minicamp and the first few days of training camp this offseason as he was waiting to sign his extension. When he signed it and returned to the team, he seemed slightly out of shape by his standards -- he didn't have his usual speed and explosion. He showed that against this past Thursday when he ran a go route up the sideline against veteran journeyman cornerback Steven Nelson and couldn't separate vertically at all. Nelson locked him up. And then Samuel injured himself.

Hopefully for the 49ers' sake, this injury is a one-off and not the sign of more to come.