The 49ers opened the practice window for Christian McCaffrey on Monday, increasing the possibility that the running back hits his target return date of Week 10.
McCaffrey has not played this season, going on injured reserve Sept. 14 with bilateral Achilles tendinitis.
General Manager John Lynch expressed optimism about McCaffrey’s availability for Sunday’s game against the Bucs.
“I sure hope so,” Lynch told Tim Kawakami on The TK Show, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “Christian’s passed every part of the test in our plan. Over the bye week, he stayed here with our trainers. How do you come to work on the bye week? You come when you’ve got guys like him working out and you want to see it. I sat up in my office and watched from afar. He looks great. He’s responded well.”
McCaffrey’s four practices this week ultimately will determine his readiness for game action. His last game was the Super Bowl in February.
“I will say that him doing IR work off to the side with our strength coaches and trainers is different than actually getting on the field,” Lynch said. “There’s that reactive element to it. And so, now we’ve got to put him through that test, responding to a safety coming up and taking one side of leverage away, and he’s got to make a cut, those types of things.
“And can he respond in a good way? Can he feel healthy enough? Can he feel like he can go make an impact and handle the volume that we’ve put on him? If so, we won’t hesitate to play him. I think we’ve been real thoughtful. I’m proud of our health and performance team, proud of Christian, the way they’ve attacked this rehab. It’s been a long time. It’s been tough, when you have a player of that caliber, to not have him. I think it’s provided opportunities for other players to show what they can do. But there’s no doubt about it, you miss a Christian McCaffrey—your entire team, not just your offense—when he’s not on the field.”
