Injuries, injuries, injuries. If there’s anything we’ve come to expect with the San Francisco 49ers, it’s that they have terrible luck with injuries. There’s a silver lining though: in 2019, they hover around the middle of the league as the 13th-most IR designations per Sportrac with their 16 designations.
It’s not ideal, but it could be a lot worse. In 2018, they were tied for second with 24. You were just waiting on when someone would get injured. Jerick McKinnon tearing his ACL on the final practice before the season got going was a sign of things to come. Then came the IR list longer than some fantasy novels. At the end of the season, the 49ers were playing backups of backups, especially in the safety positions.
While ACL injuries can’t be helped, the fact the team was so banged up was a cause for concern, and the team fired strength and conditioning coach Ray Wright a few weeks after the season concluded.
2019 has some more annoying injuries. Trent Taylor and Jalen Hurd were out before anything got going, and now with D.J. Jones off to IR, it gets more frustrating. It doesn’t help with Richard Sherman and Dee Ford out for a stretch with their respective injuries, it feels like more of the same.
The 49ers are up there with injuries, but at least things have gotten better since 2019. There’s still some football left to be played, so we’ll see what happens when things conclude. If you need more evidence, injuries are better to look no further than Jimmy Garoppolo, who’s had two seasons cut short. He played 13 games so far without a hitch.
#progress