SANTA CLARA — The 49ers received good news regarding the injured left shoulder of wide receiver Deebo Samuel, but coach Kyle Shanahan still isn’t sure if he’ll be good to go for the NFC Championship Game Sunday against the Detroit Lions.
“It wasn’t broken, so that was a real good sign,” Shanahan told local reporters in a conference call Monday. “It’s still hurting too much for us to know how it’s going to heal up this week so we’ve just got to be patient, see how he feels on Wednesday and based on how it’s improving it will give us an idea whether he has a chance for the game or not.”
Samuel played nine snaps against Green Bay before departing. He was first evaluated for a concussion and cleared, but departed with the left shoulder injury.
It’s the same shoulder he injured on his first reception in Week 6 against Cleveland. He missed the rest of that game and all of the next two games — losses to Minnesota and Cincinnati — before returning after the bye week.
The 49ers had game-planned for Green Bay with Samuel a big part of the offense and his departure confused matters when some of the same plays were dialed up for other players. Jauan Jennings, who had five catches for 61 yards, even carried on a reverse that was supposed to go to Samuel and lost a yard.
“You’ve just got to switch some guys around, which is always a challenge for those guys,” Shanahan said following the game. “It happened during the Cleveland game. We didn’t handle that well. I thought we handled it better today than we did then. But it is a huge challenge. Deebo’s obviously one of our better players, but he also is a unique guy that goes to some certain spots, so you’ve got to be adjusting to that all game.”
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Report: 49ers optimistic Samuel’s shoulder will check out OK
Against Detroit, Shanahan can develop strategies in case Samuel can’t go or departs early, enabling him to move running back Christian McCaffrey to different areas and make more use of running back Elijah Mitchell, who had just one snap against Green Bay but did not carry the ball.
More to come on this breaking story . . .
