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Christian McCaffrey Reportedly Might be Able to Play Against the Vikings

It certainly would be good news if McCaffrey's injury is nothing more than a pain-tolerance problem. That would mean that he could play on Monday night and not make the injury worse.
Grant Cohn|
Christian McCaffrey Reportedly Might be Able to Play Against the Vikings
Christian McCaffrey Reportedly Might be Able to Play Against the Vikings

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers may have received good news about Christian McCaffrey.

The oblique/rib injury that he suffered Sunday against the Browns reportedly is a mere pain-tolerance issue, according to NBC Sports Bay Area. The official results of McCaffrey's MRI are not yet in, but it sounds like there's a real possibility he will play Monday night in Minnesota against the Vikings.

It certainly would be good news if McCaffrey's injury is nothing more than a pain-tolerance problem. That would mean that he could play on Monday night and not make the injury worse.

But the 49ers have overused McCaffrey early in the season -- that's probably one reason he's injured right now. Overuse. He seems worn down. The smart move for the 49ers would be to sit him this week against the Vikings, and then sit him the following week against the Bengals just to be safe. The following week, the 49ers have their Bye. Which would give McCaffrey three weeks to rest to get fully healthy before the stretch run to the playoffs.

The 49ers certainly don't need McCaffrey to beat the Vikings, and probably don't need him to beat the Bengals, either. That's because the 49ers roster is stacked, their defense is elite and their head coach is supposed to be an offensive genius -- he shouldn't need McCaffrey to show how clever he is.

McCaffrey surely will do everything in his power to get back on the field as quickly as possible, because he's a supreme competitor. That's why the 49ers have to save him from himself and shut him down for two weeks. It's the smart move.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

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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