SANTA CLARA >> The 49ers have a few matters to attend to before adjourning this afternoon and taking the rest of the week off.
But not running back Christian McCaffrey.
McCaffrey will turn up the intensity in his workouts while the rest of the team is resting up in hopes he can get activated for practice and ideally be prepared to play on Nov. 10 when the 49ers visit the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“We’ve had no setbacks, but he’s going to hit it hard this week while we’re gone and try to simulate some practice stuff for himself,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said Monday in a conference call with local writers. “As long as it all goes good, hopefully we’ll get him back in practice this week.”
That falls short of the assumption that McCaffrey will spring from a phone booth and be ready to instantly become what he was last season — the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year as the most dynamic runner/receiver in the game.
The 49ers beat the Dallas Cowboys 30-24 Sunday night and enter the bye week with a 4-4 record. The club will meet to go over the Dallas game, break into groups, take a team photo and have a weight session with the strength coach before going their separate ways Wednesday through Sunday.
McCaffrey, 28, has been dealing with Achilles tendinitis in both legs. According to his father Ed McCaffrey, the condition was the result of overtraining.
“If I would say that Christian has a weakness, it’s that he sometimes has to protect himself from himself, in terms of training too much and doing too much,” Ed McCaffery said on Oct. 2 on the Ross Tucker Podcast.
The 49ers did exactly that when it became clear that McCaffrey’s condition had worsened leading up to the season opener. Placing him on injured reserve enabled McCaffrey and the 49ers to be more deliberate.
“After we decided to put on I.R., it’s been pretty easy,” Shanahan said. “That’s why we did decided to do that because we knew it was going to be at least a month, and shut him down for a while and now build him up slowly. Things have been going well and now it’s going to be nice to get him back hopefully.”
McCaffrey left the country briefly for Germany, reportedly for PRP (platelet-rich plasma) treatments designed to speed the healing process. He’s been on-site and at games, and last week was spotted casually shooting hoops with teammates at the basket in the locker room.
If all goes according to plan, McCaffrey’s 21-day practice window will open next Monday.
“The expectation is to see how he is when he gets back and then evaluate him as he goes,” Shanahan said. “Of course the hope is that everything just goes back to normal and it’s perfect. That’s what we’re striving for. But you’ve got to play that out smartly and evaluate that each day — what we see with our own eyes, what he tells us. It’s something we’re constantly working through.”
Last year, McCaffrey led the NFL in rushing with 1,459 yards on 272 carries with 14 touchdowns in 16 games and had 67 receptions for 594 yards and seven touchdowns. Until this year, McCaffrey had played 33 games including the playoffs for the 49ers since being acquired by trade from the Carolina Panthers in 2022 and scored 39 touchdowns.
SCHNEIDER SAFE >> Shanahan hasn’t let a coach go during the season at any point in his tenure with the 49ers which began in 2017 and he dismissed the notion of doing so with special teams coach Brian Schneider during the bye week.
“That hasn’t entered my head at all,” Shanahan said.
The 49ers’ beleaguered special teams units have contributed to the 4-4 start, but made no egregious errors and kept the explosive Dallas return game in check Sunday.