Christian McCaffrey injury update: Adam Schefter shares possible timeline for 49ers star to return

The NFL season is rolling into Week 5 and one of the biggest offensive stars of the league, San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, has yet to take a snap. And his timeline to return, according to ESPN’s NFL insider, Adam Schefter, is still murky.

McCaffrey has been dealing with a calf and Achilles injury that kept him out for most of training camp and recently saw him placed on the Injured Reserve. The 49ers placed McCaffrey on IR after Week 1, meaning he’d be out at least through Week 5.

But speaking on the “Pat McAfee Show” on Friday, Schefter said a return might not be so imminent.

“I guess, just from a common sense standpoint, we can just say we don’t know what’s going to happen here with him,” Schefter said. “You just don’t know. Because he took off time during training camp, came back, and was worse off. OK. So now he’s taking off more time, he’s getting treated, he’s going to come back and lets see how he’s feeling at that point in time. He might be better, he might not. We don’t know. But in their minds, they’re thinking, they’re expecting him to come back here in weeks. Whether that’s three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, whatever that is.” 

Someone on the show interjected with a “whoa,” which Schefter quickly acknowledged.

“Well, we don’t know. They don’t know. They don’t know,” he said of the 49ers’ understanding of McCaffrey’s situation.

Recently, the running back reportedly went to Germany to receive a therapeutic anti-inflammatory treatment, a move Schefter said is reflective of his dedication to return to the field.

“And McCaffrey’s so dedicated, this isn’t the first time he’s been to Germany,” Schefter said. “This is a guy that is always is dedicated and committed to doing whatever he can to get himself the best medical attention and to get him on the football — it’s so important to him. It means so much to him that he’s always going to do whatever he can to get back out there. And lets keep in mind: I also think he probably feels — that’s what he does, it’s who he is. They redid his contract. He feels, I’m sure, a certain sense of obligation to get out there to justify that he’s worth what this team invested in him as well. So, again, I think the plan right now is that they’re going to start ramping up here at some point in the coming weeks and that they hope, they think that he can get back there.”

And while the issue is one Schefter said could get worse, still — it did after McCaffrey sat out during camp — he did relay that the vibe from the San Francisco leadership is that their star running back will be back at some point this season.

“Well, I mean, they asked Kyle Shanahan this week: Is there any idea, in your mind, that he could sit out the season? And that idea seemed foreign to him. Like the idea never crossed his mind. They have felt like they want to slowly try to ramp him up to get him back to being on the football field.”

Right now, it’s just not sure when that will be.