Will he or won’t he? The 49ers still don’t know Christian McCaffrey’s status for Sunday’s game against the Vikings.
The running back was a surprise inactive against the Jets with a calf strain and Achilles tendinitis.
On Thursday, McCaffrey had a second consecutive limited practice.
“Same as yesterday: He had another limited day, so he got to do some of [practice],” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan told KNBR, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “Nothing really new to add, though.”
The 49ers play the Vikings on the artificial turf at U.S. Bank Stadium, which Shanahan conceded, could play a role in whether McCaffrey plays.
“You take everything into account,” Shanahan said. “You start with the doctors and everything, and you get MRIs. You get all that stuff possible, so you know exactly what’s going on. Then you talk with everyone, with a plan to build him back up.
“And we have GPS; we have rep counts; we know their strength and their max speeds, and all the stuff that they’re supposed to hit to show that they’re fully back to something, so they don’t think they’re all right, and then they go full speed for the first time during a play and then re-injure it. So you have all that stuff to go through it. We take all of it into account, but a lot of it, you depend on the player, too. If you get something that you can see in an MRI or something, where you know that he’s hurt, then it makes it real simple. You usually know how long that takes. But when it’s something that doesn’t show up as strong in that way, you’ve got to have a lot of feedback from the guy.”
Backup running back Jordan Mason rushed for 147 yards and a touchdown on 28 carries in Monday night’s victory over the Jets.
Shanahan has said that McCaffrey would have played Monday had it been a playoff game.
“Christian’s a guy who believes he’s always going to be able to overcome whatever it is, which is something that you respect about him,” Shanahan said. “He does do that more than other people, but it’s something that you got to really communicate with [him] every single day.”