Kyle Shanahan offers candid injury update on Christian McCaffrey

San Francisco 49ers star running back Christian McCaffrey is already dealing with injury concerns, and it’s only August.

McCaffrey has missed two straight practices with what the team has labeled as “tightness,” although they have yet to identify what type of tightness. However, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan isn’t concerned one bit about McCaffrey’s injury.

“My concern would be him toughing through tightness, like a lot of people do, and then hurting something bad, and then pulling something, which then, it could be a month. That would be our concern, so once we hear him talking a certain way, Christian’s a guy who needs to get prepared for Week 1,” Shanahan said, via David Bonilla of 49ers Web Zone.

“But also, we’re pretty confident in what he’s done before, we’re confident in what he’s done these two weeks, and we just want to make sure we don’t make it something to be concerned about,” Shanahan added.

McCaffrey was listed as questionable ahead of the season opener in 2025, though he ended up playing all 17 regular-season games.

McCaffrey has dealt with plenty of injuries throughout his career, and he played 10 games combined in 2020 and 2021 with the Carolina Panthers due to injuries. He also played just four games in 2024 due to a string of injuries, so there is plenty of reason to be concerned about the oft-injured star running back.