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Nick Wagoner, ESPN Staff Writer
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Already without running back Christian McCaffrey for at least the next three games, the San Francisco 49ers will also not have receiver Deebo Samuel for the next couple of weeks.
Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said Monday that Samuel strained his calf late in Sunday’s 23-17 loss to the Minnesota Vikings and would “probably miss a couple of weeks.”
According to Shanahan, Samuel suffered the injury with a little more than two minutes left in the game.
“He told me he thinks he did it when he caught, I think it was the third to last play,” Shanahan said. “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 2:18 left in the fourth quarter, Niners quarterback Brock Purdy threw short to the right side to Samuel for a 2-yard gain. Television replays showed Samuel grimacing and moving slowly to the sideline favoring his right leg just before the two-minute warning.
After missing one snap, Samuel reentered the game and caught a deflected backward pass that went down as a loss of 9 yards on San Francisco’s final offensive play before kicking a field goal. Samuel finished the game with eight catches for 110 yards and two carries for negative-10 yards.
With Samuel out, the Niners will be missing their two most versatile offensive players. McCaffrey is on injured reserve with Achilles tendonitis and must miss at least the next three games.
“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.”
For Samuel, it’s the latest in a line of frustrating, short-term injuries that have cost him games throughout his career. Samuel has never played a full season since arriving in 2019, missing time with groin, foot, hamstring, ankle, knee and shoulder injuries.
As it stands, San Francisco has a group of receivers that includes Brandon Aiyuk, Jauan Jennings, Jacob Cowing, Chris Conley and Ronnie Bell on the active roster to fill the void left by Samuel. The 49ers also still have an open roster spot from placing McCaffrey on IR.
Samuel was coming off a strong training camp and Shanahan liked what he saw from him in two games before the injury.
“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.”
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