Much has been said about the status of San Francisco 49ers rookie Reuben Foster's surgically repaired shoulder. Reports that there may still be an issue with the shoulder, resulting in his plummet in the first round of the draft, originated from Mike Lombardi on Monday. Lombardi heard from teams in the league that they believe the shoulder injury led them to stay away from selecting him earlier in the draft.
Following the 2016 collegiate football season, Foster underwent surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder. It was an injury that prevented the linebacker from participating in the NFL Scouting Combine. In the 2017 NFL Draft, Foster dropped to the 49ers, who traded up to the 31st overall pick to select him because waiting at 32 were the New Orleans Saints, who were already on the phone welcoming him to the team.
On Wednesday, likely stemming from the Lombardi report, Adam Schefter of ESPN also reported that the shoulder injury made teams wary of drafting Foster. "Despite surgery on his right rotator cuff, Foster's right shoulder was worrisome enough that some teams did not consider drafting him," Schefter wrote. "'The surgery didn't take,' said one well-placed source with knowledge of the injury."
The 49ers and the team doctors have seemed fairly confident that Foster will be fine in the long run. Foster himself believes that he will miss OTAs but will be "full-go" once training camp arrives.
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan joined KNBR on Thursday morning and discussed Foster's shoulder. "There's 32 teams and everyone has their own doctors and everyone goes through a process," Shanahan continued. "I mean, you look back to John Ross. A lot of people thought he was going to go really late because a lot of teams had stuff on him but, obviously, Cincy felt different. They took him early in the draft so they felt good about it.
"Our doctors do a great job. They looked into everything with Reuben and met with him. Our doctors felt good about his shoulder. They thought it was recovering well. They didn't have the same report a lot of other teams did. You never know who is going to end up being right. Everyone is trying to do their best to figure it out but no one can tell the future and I just look at it as – you go with what your doctors say and then you always think about, 'OK, what about the worst-case scenario? What if this is true?'
"The worst-case scenario is the shoulder doesn't heal correctly and you've got to do it again. When you have to do it again, you have to get another surgery and it would be tough to play this year, and you end up having him the next year. But it's not something that would hurt him long-term. So, the worst-case scenario, he wouldn't end up being able to play for us right away but I still don't think how that would have changed how I personally felt about taking a guy with the 31st pick with the caliber of player that we took."
"I think that good of a player falling late – off the tape, everyone saw him as one of the best players in the draft," Shanahan continued about Foster. "There's things to allow you to get one of the best players in the draft at 31. There has to be other things involved. The injury report that other teams had on him, that did help him fall and that helped him become a Niner so I definitely look at it that way.
"To be able to get the trade that we got at the beginning to move from two to three, not only were we able to get Solomon [Thomas] but the picks that we added, it allowed us to maneuver a lot during the day and the next day to get the guys that we wanted to."
You can listen to the entire interview on KNBR.