As the 49ers prepare for a day-shortened week of practice and a road trip to Green Bay, there are looming questions over three monumentally important players in Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and Jimmy Garoppolo.
Bosa left the game with a concussion, while Warner re-aggravated an ankle sprain and Garoppolo suffered a shoulder sprain. Warner took to social media on Monday to say that he’ll be “good to go” for Saturday’s game. Bosa’s status is up to doctors.
Garoppolo’s was vague. Shanahan said Monday that he was expected to practice on Tuesday, and did so in limited fashion.
After both Shanahan and Garoppolo spoke Tuesday, there’s a clearer picture of how Garoppolo injured himself… again. Garoppolo said, ironically, it happened to avoid further injury to his thumb.
“I got thrown down, went to put my hand out and sort of had it in my mind that if my thumb hit, I didn’t know what was gonna happen,” Garoppolo said. “So tried to catch it with my elbow a little bit and just jammed the shoulder up.”
Shanahan said he thinks it happened in the second quarter.
Still, there was a glaring difference of opinion in whether the shoulder injury affected Garoppolo’s play, which took a nosedive in the second half, highlighted by an overthrow of a wide-open Brandon Aiyuk, and an interception on another overthrow in the 49ers’ half.
Shanahan said he doesn’t believe the injury had an effect on how Garoppolo played.
“You can ask him but no, I don’t,” Shanahan said. “I think he did it earlier than his last throw. He did it earlier in the second quarter, I think. But he had two throws that were off and I personally don’t think it had to do with the shoulder.”
Garoppolo believes it did affect him.
“I mean, the shoulder, yeah, being a quarterback, it affects every throw,” Garoppolo said. “So it definitely has some impact. But if I’m out there and I’m being put in that spot, I got to still make the plays that I normally make. So no excuses or anything like that. This injury is what it is. We’re all dealing with stuff now.”
That is a bit of an odd and blatant disparity in how they think he was affected by the injury.
As far as expectations for this week, Shanahan said Monday it was “just a slight shoulder sprain” and seemed to indicate Garoppolo would play Saturday by pointing to his participation in the first practice of the week on Tuesday.
Garoppolo said the shoulder is just as painful as the torn UCL he suffered in his thumb, which NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport has reported will need offseason surgery.
Asked which injury hurts more, Garoppolo paused.
“Yes,” Garoppolo said, laughing. “They’re pretty close.”
So that situation is predictably as weird as possible and we’ll all just have to wait to Saturday to see how that plays out. But given that Garoppolo made it through the thumb injury and played through the shoulder injury, you’d expect he plays Saturday.
As far as Nick Bosa, his status is still uncertain as he goes through concussion protocol. The Saturday game cuts one possible day off of his potential recovery time.
Fred Warner, meanwhile, is exceedingly confident he’ll play. He tweeted out that he’ll be “good to go” on Monday and explained his belief on Tuesday.
“I think just the fact that the MRI results came back great, and just the way I’ve been feeling gives me a lot of confidence for Saturday,” Warner said.
The other new injury was a bone bruise to rookie corner Ambry Thomas’ knee. Of course, it was couched in Shanahan’s typical tone that made it seem like nothing to be worried about.
“It happened sometime in the game,” Shanahan said. “Just a bone bruise. We think he’ll be alright, but just not alright for a Tuesday.”
Below is the 49ers’ full injury report for Tuesday’s practice:
Limited:
- Azeez Al-Shaair (knee)
- Talanoa Hufanga (knee)
- Ambry Thomas (knee) “just” a bone bruise
- Dre Greenlaw (groin)
- Marcell Harris (Achilles)
- Jimmy Garoppolo (thumb, shoulder)
- Elijah Mitchell (knee)
- Fred Warner (ankle)
Did not practice:
- Nick Bosa (concussion protocol)
- Jordan Willis (high ankle sprain)
The official injury report has yet to be sent out for both the Packers and 49ers, but it’s been reported that a huge number of players returned for Green Bay in their Tuesday practice:
- Za’Darius Smith
- Whitney Mercilus
- Randall Cobb
- Marquez Valdes-Scantling
- Lucas Patrick
- Billy Turner
- Jaire Alexander
The Packers are due to have some major returns in Smith, Alexander and potentially David Bakhtiari.
