The 49ers announced running back Christian McCaffrey had a thigh injury during Sunday’s loss to the Falcons, but the diagnosis of his injury was different on Monday.
Fortunately for the 49ers, the outlook was similar to the one McCaffrey shared after the game. Head coach Kyle Shanahan said on Monday that McCaffrey has a mild hamstring strain while confirming McCaffrey’s belief that it won’t be an issue when the team returns from their bye in Week 9.
“Yeah, we think so, with it just being that,” Shanahan said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “I mean, you never know for sure, but we’re pretty optimistic about it. So is he.”
McCaffrey ran seven times for 39 yards and a touchdown while also catching six passes for 61 yards on Sunday.
Mike Evans, Nick Bosa, and Deebo Samuel are among the other players the 49ers also hope to have available after the bye, but it will be a while before there are firmer updates on their chances of playing.
The 49ers’ bye week was extended by 20 minutes on Monday.
The team announced that the start time for their Week 9 home game against the Raiders will now kick off at 4:25 p.m. ET. The game was originally set to get underway at 4:05 p.m.
In addition to changing time slots, the game will now be on Fox rather than CBS.
Fox is also set to carry the Packers-Patriots game in New England and the Cardinals-Seahawks game in Seattle during that window. The only 4:05 p.m. ET game on CBS is now the Texans’ trip to Los Angeles to face the Chargers.
As the 49ers enter the bye week, they could be thinking about saying farewell to kicker Eddy Piñiero.
The veteran kicker missed another extra point in Sunday’s loss to the Falcons. Through seven games, he has missed four extra points and three field goals.
After the game, coach Kyle Shanahan was asked whether the 49ers will work out kickers during the bye week.
“I don’t know,” he said, “I haven’t talked to anybody about that, we’ll probably discuss on the plane.”
On Friday, Shanahan was asked whether he has spoken to Piñiero about the missed kicks.
“No,” Shanahan said. “Not much to discuss. I can make stuff up, but he knows he’s got to make kicks, and we all do. I’m not going to try to teach him how to do that.”
For a team with high aspirations, one missed kick can spell doom. Sunday’s failed extra point left the deficit at 26-20 with 5:05 to play. Which allowed the Falcons to make it a two-score game with a field goal. Which made it virtually impossible for the 49ers to close the gap when they got the ball down nine points with 1:50 to play.
The 49ers have dealt with a slew of injuries this season, so they were likely bracing for the worst when running back Christian McCaffrey was forced out of Sunday’s game against the Falcons with a thigh injury in the first quarter.
McCaffrey was able to return in the second half, but his presence wasn’t enough to stop the team from suffering their first loss of the 2026 season. After the game, McCaffrey said that he felt like his leg “just died on me” and that he was frustrated trying to get back on track the rest of the day before adding that he doesn’t expect the issue to linger into the future.
“I’ll be fine. I’m not worried about it,” McCaffrey said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “It just sucks to me because that was one of those ones where I just felt like I could have got going . . . I was just trying to keep it warm and not make it worse, but there’s only so much you can do to get back to where you want to be. I’ll be fine. I know that. I’ll be all right.”
The 49ers have a bye in Week 8 and McCaffrey won’t be the only one hoping to use it as time to to get closer to full strength heading into the second half of the season.
Falcons rookie linebacker Kendal Daniels left the field on a stretcher last Sunday. A week later, he left the field a hero of the Falcons’ 29-20 upset of the previously undefeated 49ers.
“It’s been the craziest week of my life,” Daniels said, via Marc Raimondi of ESPN. “I’ve never not walked off the field after an injury. So, mentally, I had to be prepared and going back home and just making sure I was OK mentally more than anything and not playing timid, but I’ve never not gotten up from an injury. So, being stretched off the field -- I won’t let it happen again. It was a bad feeling, and I’m blessed to be able to play this week.”
Last week, Daniels dove to tackle Bears tight end Colston Loveland in the third quarter and Daniels’ head collided with Loveland’s left leg. Medical personnel attended to Daniels for almost 8 minutes before sending him to a local hospital for further evaluation of his neck.
On Sunday, Daniels iced the game with an interception of Brock Purdy. He also had nine solo tackles and a fumble recovery.
Coach Kevin Stefanski called it “remarkable.”
“I wasn’t thinking of [his neck injury],” Daniels said. “‘I think that was the last thing I was worried about was last week.”
