Christian McCaffrey’s father, Ed, revealed that the San Francisco 49ers star suffered his serious bilateral Achilles tendinitis injury whilst attempting to train too hard to be in the best shape for the 2024/25 NFL season, of which he’s yet to make an appearance.
The ace running back, who rushed for 14 touchdowns last season as well as catching another seven, is yet to appear through the opening four games and is likely going to be sidelined for a considerable amount of time.
And the impact is clear. The 49ers are .500 and second in the NFC West, already losing ground to the Seattle Seahawks in the absence of the 28-year-old overall eighth pick of the 2018 NFL Draft.
Fans have been left stunned as to the reasons behind his absence with the 49ers keeping their cards very close to their chest until October 1 when they finally admitted that he’s battling against bilateral Achilles tendinitis, something Ed expanded upon a bit more.
“Tendinitis is an over-training injury,” Ed McCaffrey told the Ross Tucker Football Podcast. “Meaning you’re training too hard or doing too much, and it turns into tendinitis.
“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.”
The reason for McCaffrey’s overtraining could be down to how close the 49ers came to Super Bowl glory in February 2024 when they lost the final game of the season to the Kansas City Chiefs in over-time to the score of 25-22.
Additionally, it looks for large parts of the offseason that the Californian team were set to trade Brandon Aiyuk away from the Levi’s Stadium meaning Kyle Shanahan could have been set to add extra burdens to McCaffrey’s work load.
When will McCaffrey be back?
McCaffrey recently flew to Europe to visit a specialist in the condition and the 49ers seem set to increase his work load, seeming as though he might be due to return to the football field soon for Brock Purdy.
But whilst the exact timeline is unclear, he cannot return sooner than Week 4 of the season due to being placed on the Injured Reserve list although it was unlikely he would have returned by then anyway.
So far, the 49ers predict the ace could be back in early November, with them kicking off their first game of that month against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on November 10.
