A season that began on the injured list could end the same way for star San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey.
After McCaffrey exited the 49ers’ 35-10 loss at Buffalo in Week 13 in the second quarter Sunday night and never returned, San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters he had injured the posterior cruciate ligament in a knee.
After undergoing an MRI on Monday, the team officially placed him on the IR. He will miss at least four of the final five games of the regular season.
With 11:23 left in the second quarter, McCaffrey took a toss and ran to his right but immediately appeared hobbled and slid rather than be hit. It was unclear whether that play caused the injury.
Sunday’s game was the third McCaffrey was playing after he sat out the first eight this season with Achilles tendinitis in both legs. He had reportedly traveled to Germany to receive treatment on his legs.
McCaffrey’s father, Ed, the former Super Bowl-winning receiver, said on a podcast that tendinitis was an “over-training injury.”
“If I would say that Christian has a weakness, it’s that he sometimes has to protect himself from himself, in terms of training too much and doing too much,” Ed McCaffrey said in October on the "Ross Tucker Football Podcast."
Losing McCaffrey to start the season and potentially to end it, as well, is a significant blow. He was the NFL’s 2023 Offensive Player of the Year, and his ability to run and catch passes out of the backfield turned the 49ers into the NFL’s leader last season in yards per offensive play and second in points per game.
Though injuries to other San Francisco standouts, including receivers Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel and tight end George Kittle, hampered the 49ers’ start this season, McCaffrey’s absence removed one of the league’s most dynamic threats, whose gravity, as defenses devoted attention to him, regularly created openings for teammates. Without McCaffrey for the majority of the season, the 49ers have stumbled to a 5-7 record.
