SANTA CLARA — The 49ers’ season doesn’t begin till the accidents do.
Sure, the sport of soccer is violent. And sure, the game calls for athletes be finely tuned.
Always remember that this can be a sport of attrition.
However the 49ers appear to tackle extra attrition than most groups, they usually appear to do it each single 12 months.
This summer time, it’s hamstring accidents which can be undercutting the Niners.
4 doable starters are out due to hamstring strains: offensive lineman Dan Brunskill, working again Elijah Mitchell, cornerback Emmanuel Moseley, and now free security Jimmy Ward.
The Ward damage, introduced by Kyle Shanahan Monday morning, appears to be the worst of the bunch. The Niners coach mentioned it might preserve the linchpin of the Niners’ protection out for Week 1 in opposition to the Bears — a sport that's 27 days away.
“It’s been bothersome to me,” Shanahan mentioned of the hamstring accidents. “They’ve all come after days off. It’s been an actual problem this camp — with the way it’s spaced out with these video games and the time off guidelines… Our greatest problem has been these off days and the way to come again from them.”
While you add within the Niners’ different huge accidents — beginning cornerback Charvarious Ward is out with a groin pressure, and beginning proper deal with Mike McGlinchey, who coming off a torn quad, injured his knee within the Niners’ preseason debut and may very well be heading in direction of a platlet-rich plasma injection, per Shanahan — there’s an issue in Santa Clara.
And it’s an issue this crew has seen earlier than.
I’m not a physician. And I gained’t fake to play one.
However I can rely.
Sure, the Niners are, once more, one of many deepest groups within the NFL, however that depth is being examined, once more, earlier than the 2022 season even begins.
The idiot in me thought this is likely to be a 12 months when the Niners can be blessed with good damage luck.
What a silly thought.
I can’t even keep in mind the final time that occurred for the 49ers.
Final 12 months, the Niners had been the fourth-most injured crew within the NFL, per Soccer Outsiders. And per ManGamesLost.com, these accidents carried the third largest influence within the league.
This, although the Niners had been the NFL’s solely crew that didn’t have a participant miss a sport in 2021 due to COVID protocol.
In 2020, the Niners had been essentially the most injured crew within the NFL. The 12 months earlier than that, 2019, they had been fifth. The 12 months earlier than that, 2018, they had been fourth.
The Niners’ greatest season in Soccer Outsiders Adjusted Video games Misplaced within the Shanahan period was his first 12 months, 2017 — they had been the ninth-most injured crew within the NFL.
It’s frankly unbelievable, given all of the accidents this crew has suffered all through the years, that they’ve had any success, a lot much less two NFC Championship Recreation appearances and a fourth-quarter lead within the Tremendous Bowl.
Shanahan is conscious that his crew appears to be bitten by the damage bug yearly. It’s not as if the Niners aren’t attempting to rid themselves of this downside.
The group fired each head coach Jeff Ferguson and power and conditioning coach Ray Wright after the 2018 marketing campaign.
Issues have gotten worse since then.
This season’s early damage blows are displaying that the unhealthy numbers aren’t simply due to oft-injured quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. No, there’s one thing bigger occurring in Santa Clara. You possibly can argue it even predates the Shanahan period.
Everybody has theories as to why it’s occurring. Nobody has solutions.
One of many favourite theories on the Niners’ damage woes was formally posited by Joe Staley. The Niners nice as soon as posited on KNBR that the crew picked up accidents as a result of Shanahan’s groups apply with out a lot contact, particularly in coaching camp.
“[Jim] Harbaugh, when he was our coach, used to all the time say, ‘You need to construct a callus,'” Staley mentioned. “I actually imagine that there's something to that as a result of we all the time felt very, very wholesome, and hardened virtually, by the preparation that we had completed all season.”
After all, hitting the snot out of your personal teammates opens up gamers for different kinds of damage. Once more, this can be a full-contact sport.
However might the extra informal practices be the rationale why hamstrings are popping left and proper?
Might it's Shanahan’s “days off” principle?
There was, for some time, the wholly unsubstantiated principle that the Levi’s Stadium turf — which was notoriously poor for years — was in charge.
Now, the grass subject is inarguably one of many NFL’s greatest. Accidents are nonetheless occurring.
Maybe it has to do with Levi’s Stadium itself. Is the bottom across the stadium — the place the crew practices — cursed? In that case, did the Santa Clara AYSO fee it?
It’s not my jam, however given the severity and persistence of the issue, you may’t rule out the non secular or the occult.
However you may rule out this 12 months being the season that the Niners’ damage luck will change.