San Francisco 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel has been ruled out for multiple weeks with a calf strain – coming as another major injury setback for the team after Christian McCaffrey was placed on injury reserve.
Samuel, who has been a crucial member of the 49ers offense since 2019, picked up the injury late on in Sunday’s 23-17 upset loss to the Minnesota Vikings, head coach Kyle Shanahan confirmed.
Shanahan expects his star wideout to ‘probably miss a couple of weeks’ as a result, with the Los Angeles Rams up next in California on Sunday and the New England Patriots visiting San Francisco a week later.
‘He told me he thinks he did it when he caught, I think it was the third to last play,’ the 49ers coach said about Samuel.
‘They had a blitz down in the red zone. He caught the hot route breaking in. He says he thinks he did it on that play.’
With just over two minutes to play in the final quarter, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy threw short to the right side to Samuel, who could be seen grimacing while moving to the sideline after a two-yard gain.
He reentered the game having missed one snap and caught a deflected backward pass that went down as a loss of nine yards on San Francisco’s final offensive play before they kicked a field goal.
Shanahan will now be without two key offensive players in at least their next two fixtures against the Rams and Patriots, with McCaffrey also recovering from Achilles tendonitis.
The running back is also likely to miss San Francisco’s meeting with the Arizona Cardinals on October 6 at Levi’s Stadium as he builds himself back towards full fitness.
‘When you lose real good players, it’s always tough,’ Shanahan said. ‘But it happens all over the league, and it’s a huge part of this league and a huge part of this game. We’ve got to deal with it.’
Samuel, who has never played a full season since arriving in 2019 due to frequent injury problems, had eight catches for 110 yards and two carries for negative-10 yards against the Vikings.
‘I thought he had some real good catches,’ Shanahan said. ‘Deebo had to kind of climb the ladder a couple of times and made a couple impressive caches, and I thought he played one of his better games versus the Jets.
‘So, I don’t know if I’d say one of his better ones compared to others, but I thought he played real well.’
