The already thinned-out San Francisco 49ers defensive line is about to miss its biggest star, as Nick Bosa has reportedly suffered a calf injury that will lead him to miss at least one game and possibly quite a few more.
According to NFL insiders Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport, Bosa pulled his calf at some point during practice on Thursday and is injured enough to already be ruled out for Week 3’s game against the Cardinals and could miss “a few weeks.” According to the ESPN and NFL Network insiders, the 49ers are evaluating whether Bosa needs to be placed on injured reserve. If the Niners do place Bosa on IR, he will be out for a minimum of four weeks.
The first hints that this could be a major injury came from NBC Sports Bay Area reporter Jennifer Lee Chan in a livestream on her personal YouTube channel on Thursday night. According to Chan, the 49ers didn’t release their injury report for a few hours after Thursday’s practice, an atypical move for the team. While Chan didn’t say she had any sources indicating as such, her experience on the 49ers beat had her believing some bad news was coming.
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“You should probably prepare yourself mentally for something to be announced tomorrow that it’s pretty serious, that Nick Bosa is out for a while,” Lee Chan said. “If it’s not season-ending, I have a belief – and just the way things happened today, just the way the injury report came out late, just the way that all of a sudden, there’s now a calf, knee and calf injury on the list for him? – it makes me very hesitant to say that he’s going to play.”
That belief turned out to be prescient on Friday morning. The 49ers are already without defensive tackles C.J. West, James Thompson Jr. and Alfred Collins (who is out for the season) as well as defensive ends Sam Okuayinonu and Mykel Williams, who is still recovering from his torn ACL last season. (Not to mention that Romello Height broke his hand last week but may play through the injury.)
But none of those guys are a superstar like Bosa. Losing him for even a game, let alone multiple, might make it panic time in Santa Clara.
This breaking news story will be updated.
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This article originally published at 49ers star Nick Bosa has new calf injury, will miss ‘a few weeks’.
