Nick Bosa has been dealing with a hip injury since last week. The 49ers should get back Yetur Gross-Matos, which will help with depth
San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch had his weekly appearance on KNBR.
Lynch is hopeful that Charvarius Ward will be back in the lineup soon. He said, “Hopefully, we have Mooney back here in short order. From the start, we were going to do that on his time. It’s a devastating thing. It’s a ‘when you’re ready, you’re ready type thing.’ We just care more about the person and the family.”
One of the questions that came up was balance for Christian McCaffrey. McCaffrey finished Week 10 with 19 touches. Lynch said it’ll depend on the game whether McCaffrey sees more or fewer touches moving forward:
“Christian is such a well-conditioned athlete. Oftentimes, we say, ‘Hey, he’s in tremendous shape. Now he’s just got to get in football shape.’ He was as ready as he could be. He looked really well. I think Kyle [Shanahan] went in with a plan. The game was tight. We couldn’t put it away, so it’s hard to take that dude off the field.
Having said that, we’re mindful of it. The best thing I could tell you is that we have a lot of confidence, not only in JP Mason, but in [Isaac] Guerendo, and Patrick Taylor, for that matter, who is now on our practice squad. We’ve got a lot of faith in each of them. Christian is a game-changing player, but I promise those guys will get those opportunities. It could be this week. They’ve earned the right to get the ball.”
Defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos was a full participant in both practices this week. Lynch said he’s doing really well:
“He’s had two full practices this week. So, you kinda make those decisions as the week goes on. The way Yetur’s going right now, it’s looking pretty good for him.”
Linebacker Dre Greenlaw is “getting closer.” Lynch said Greenlaw has been working off to the side: “There’s just markers we want to hit. And we want to make sure we get him there. And the other thing with Dre is once he gets in practice, you open that window up.
He probably takes a little bit of that window. Coming off the Achilles, it’s not a simple thing. It’s not easy. You really have to go through all the steps. Believe me, it’s hard for Dre, it’s hard for us.
We’d love to just throw him out there because we’d be a better team for it. We want him back, not only for the short term but for the duration. We’re trying to be very purposeful on how we do that. So, he’s getting closer, but I don’t have any definitive answer on that.”
Nick Bosa’s hip is also getting better. Lynch said Bosa’s hip issue was noticeable during the Tampa Bay game in Week 10:
“Generally, those get better if you can get through a game with these things. He did learn that last week, he did work through it in practice, and it’s probably better to take a little rest. Nick plays so much and works so hard that a little time off his legs is a good thing for him and for us.
I still think he’s gotta make some progress before Sunday. If we can get him a little more fresh, that’s going to be a good thing for us.”
The return of Gross-Matos could be the difference in Bosa playing 70 percent of the snaps as opposed to 85 percent. Every little bit helps at this point in the year.