San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan spoke to reporters on Monday via a conference call, providing some injury updates from Sunday’s 37-34 overtime road win against the Las Vegas Raiders. Two players—guard Aaron Banks and linebacker Dre Greenlaw—left the game with injuries.
The 49ers feared an MCL sprain for Banks, and Greenlaw sustained a back injury. Both underwent tests on Monday morning to determine the severity of the injuries.
Banks’ injury doesn’t sound as severe as initially anticipated. The offensive lineman suffered knee and ankle sprains, and for now, will likely miss Week 18’s action against the Arizona Cardinals. Daniel Brunskill replaced Banks at left guard against the Raiders.
“We’ll see how [Banks] is next week,” Shanahan said. “… We’re definitely going to miss Aaron for at least one game.”
The severity of Greenlaw’s injury will be determined later this week. The hope is that the linebacker won’t miss any time, but more tests are needed.
“We’re still, with it being a holiday, we don’t have all the machines available [to test Greenlaw] until tomorrow,” Shanahan said. “So we’ll find out that then.”
The coach sounded relieved that the injuries might not be as severe as thought.
“As bad as both of them looked, we didn’t know if it could be the whole season or not, so I do feel like we got some good news so far on it,” Shanahan added.
Running back Christian McCaffrey sustained a mild ankle sprain and is day-to-day. The 49ers coach was not sure when the injury occurred.
Shanahan noted that wide receiver Deebo Samuel and running back Elijah Mitchell will practice this week. Mitchell remains on injured reserve. Samuel got some limited work on the practice field last week.
Would the 49ers like to have both play against the Cardinals?
“Yeah,” Shanahan responded. “I mean, I know they definitely could help us win, that’s for sure. If they’re 100 percent and completely healthy and going, and they look great in practice—I mean, I’d like to talk to both of them about it too, see where they are, and how confident they are, definitely talk to the doctors. But usually, once they let them come out to practice, it’s pretty good. We’ve just got to see how they’re moving and how they feel through it all.
“I know it’s supposed to rain a bunch this week, so we’ll see how much full-speed stuff we can get in. But yeah, I’d love to get those guys out there. I just want to make sure that can only help us and them, and not hurt us.”
