Christian McCaffrey injury update: Here’s when star running back is targeting his 49ers return, per report

The San Francisco 49ers may or may not have fill-in running back Jordan Mason in Week 7, with the young reserve battling a shoulder injury. They’ll have to make do, however, because it’ll likely be close to another month until Christian McCaffrey is back, according to NFL Media.

The reigning Offensive Player of the Year, who’s battling Achilles tendinitis in both legs, was technically eligible to return for San Francisco’s Week 6 matchup after missing four games while on injured reserve. Behind the scenes, “the target, in the eyes of McCaffrey and the 49ers,” per Ian Rapoport, has been getting “him back to practice at some point in that window” between Week 7 and Week 8, ahead of a Week 9 bye.

“No new updates other than he’s doing incredibly well,” general manager John Lynch told KNBR this week. “It’s all about the ramp-up, increasing the activity, making sure that there’s no setbacks. I [can] just tell people he’s on a good track with that. No timelines or anything, but he’s doing a little bit more — not each day. We kind of stagger it, work hard one day, kind of go into more of a [regeneration] day the next day. But when you can start to stack those … that’s a good thing, and that’s kind of the direction he’s trending in.”

The 49ers (3-3) play host to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, then host the Dallas Cowboys a week later. Ideally, Rapoport reported, McCaffrey will have had several weeks to practice by the time San Francisco rests up on its bye, enabling him to return to game action in Week 10 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Nov. 10. That, however, is only an estimation, with ESPN recently indicating that neither McCaffrey nor the 49ers truly know when the star running back will be healthy enough to take the field.

McCaffrey, who led the NFL with a career-high 1,459 rushing yards in 2023, has yet to take a single snap for the team this year. Made the league’s highest-paid running back this offseason, he endured a significant injury history prior to landing with the 49ers in 2022, missing a combined 23 games from 2020-2021.

Mason has excelled as a runner in McCaffrey’s absence, leading the NFL with 609 yards in six games as the emergency starter, but didn’t finish the 49ers’ last win due to his own injury. The 49ers’ other options at running back are Isaac Guerendo, who had a late 76-yard run in Week 6, and Patrick Taylor Jr.