The San Francisco 49ers head into their bye week with most players headed their separate ways for a few days of R&R. However, injured players remain around the facility continuing rehab as needed. The 53-man roster is mostly healthy, but injured reserve players still have plenty of work to do.
Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and running back Jerick McKinnon are among those getting work in as they rehab their respective ACL injuries. Both had similar fairly straight forward ACL injuries a few weeks apart, and so their rehab timelines are staggered but fairly similar.
General manager John Lynch came into the office on Wednesday and saw Garoppolo and McKinnon in doing their regular rehab work. Lynch chatted with KNBR on Thursday evening, and said Garoppolo was officially off crutches.
“I came in yesterday, just to kinda clean my office out — during the bye week it’s a ghost town over there. Both those guys were in there. Jerick’s been off — both of them kinda had a similar procedure, it was non-weight bearing for a little bit. Jerick’s been off his crutch, and Jimmy had been on two crutches, then one crutch. And then yesterday, I came in, and he was walking, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ So, that’s progress, and that’s exciting. They’re both working extremely hard.”
McKinnon tore his ACL in practice on September 1st, had surgery two weeks later, and bid farewell to his crutches on September 23rd. Garoppolo tore his ACL on September 23rd, had surgery on October 5th, and now is officially off his crutches.
Both players should be available when the team gets into OTAs next May. Head coach Kyle Shanahan said he is hoping Garoppolo will be able to throw and do non-contact work. McKinnon likely will be able to do non-contact work as well, but I have to think the team will still be relatively conservative with them in May and June. The goal is to have both ready to go when training camp gets started next July, and pushing them too hard in OTAs and minicamp is not worth the risk of a setback.
Lynch also addressed Scot McCloughan’s tweet from Monday, when the former GM complained about Garoppolo being in a suite instead of on the sideline with his teammates. We’ve already discussed this, but Lynch offered a direct answer on the topic.
“I think Jimmy’s doing a great job, as is Jerick, about being around their teammates. It was pointed out to me from a former general manager that why wasn’t he down there with his team? Just so everyone knows, he wasn’t cleared to be down there. He can’t move well enough to protect himself, and I’d have a heart attack if he were. So, he was exactly where he was supposed to be.”
Hopefully that’s the end of that