49ers injury reports, Weeks 1-10: George Kittle has been banged up most of the season

The San Francisco 49ers are in their bye week, which means players get a chance to recover from the many bumps, bruises, sprains, and other injuries that have accumulated over the course of the season. Plenty of players will not be at 100 percent after the bye, but this is an important opportunity for recovery.

When the 49ers return to practice next week, two notable names could be available for Sunday’s game. Tank Carradine has been practicing for two weeks, and is expected to be activated off injured reserve for Week 12. Solomon Thomas missed two games with an MCL sprain, but got back to practice last week. There could be a decent chance he returns.

Last week, the 49ers were without George Kittle (ankle), Elijah Lee (knee), Aaron Lynch (calf), and Trent Taylor (ribs). Lynch got in limited practices last week, while the other three were DNPs all week. Taylor seems likely to miss Week 12, while things are a little unclear for Kittle, Lee, and Lynch. My guess is Lynch will be off the injury report, but we’ll see.

In the meantime, I thought I would put together a spreadsheet detailing just how many players have been in and out of the injury report. Eric Reid and Reuben Foster are the most regular mentions, but George Kittle is significant in his own right. Reid has been listed due to his early season knee injury, while Foster has been listed primarily with his ankle injury, and also with his rib injury. Kittle has appeared on six of the ten injury reports, and it has been due to seven different issues.

Kittle opened the season with a hamstring injury in Week 1, then added a calf issue in Week 2, and a hip issue in Week 3. He was not listed the next two weeks, but then was listed with a chest issue in Week 6, back and elbow issues in Week 7. He was off the injury report in Weeks 8 and 9, and then had the ankle injury that sidelined him in Week 10. That’s a whole lot of different bumps, bruises, and other issues.

The 49ers likely won’t have an empty injury report coming out of the bye, but it should be relatively light coming off the bye. The full participants from Week 10 included Brock Coyle, Reuben Foster, Dontae Johnson, Eric Reid, Brandon Fusco, D.J. Jones, Kyle Juszczyk, Mark Nzeocha, and Joe Staley. We might see some of them listed again as “full participants,” but that number should clear out a bit.

Head into next week’s first practice, C.J. Beathard is likely to appear as limited or full with a thumb injury. He suffered the injury when he dove for his rushing touchdown. Trainers looked at it, and he was able to close out the game, but Kyle Shanahan said on Monday that Beathard will get some rest time this week to recover.