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The 49ers have dealt with various injuries over the last week of training camp, and that has overshadowed the players that have been rehabbing since before camp got started. At the start of training camp, the 49ers placed eight players on either the Active/PUP or Active/NFI lists. Among those placed on the NFI list were rookies Tank Carradine and Quinton Dial. Carradine has been rehabbing an ACL tear from last November, while Dial has been recovering from January surgery on a turf toe injury.
Vic Fangio was asked on Friday if he had a better sense of when Carradine would return. His response:
"I don't. I don't know anything about Tank or [DT] Quinton [Dial]. Any question there should go to [Head Strength & Condition Coach Mark] Uye or [Vice President of Football Operations Jeff Ferguson] Ferg in the training room. I'm sure I'll be alerted when he's close to coming back and I haven't been alerted yet."
The most notable part is probably the part where he says he is sure he'll be alerted when Tank is close to coming back. Technically that means Tank is not close, but given that the training staff could tell him at any moment, I don't know how much we should read into that.
During the team's offseason training program in June, defensive coordinator Vic Fangio was asked about the status of Carradine and Dial. At the time he said he did not expect them back for the start of training camp. The start of camp has obviously come and gone, and we are still waiting and wondering what to expect with Tank and Dial.
Any projection as to when Tank and Dial will be back is mostly a guess at this point. Given that they are already missing a sizable amount of practice, their early season impact would be incredibly limited. Of course, we saw with A.J. Jenkins and Joe Looney that the 49ers are more than willing to stash rookies as inactives. They can't go overboard with it, but Tank and Dial could be those guys this year. We'll need to check back in ten days, give or take, and see what the latest word is.