San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan met with the media on Friday, which is the last time he will do so until after this Sunday's game against the Seattle Seahawks. He gave an update on free safety Jimmie Ward, who has missed all of training camp, preseason, and was inactive against the Carolina Panthers during Week 1.
Ward has been dealing with a hamstring injury that he suffered at the start of training camp. It was an injury that forced the team to place him on the physically-unable-to-perform list until August 23. Since then, as the 49ers do with all of their injured players, the team has been careful in the process of getting Ward back onto the football field.
Shanahan was asked if the 49ers are being more careful with Ward, who has been activated for now for 23 days, because of the position that he plays and the fact that the free safety is expected to cover more ground on defense.
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"I think you always have to be careful with hamstrings," Shanahan said. "But I definitely agree that when all the skill guys – people that cover more ground – those hamstrings tend to go faster than the guys who stay more between the hashes. All 11 guys out there have to run a lot but, definitely, for a middle third player like Jimmie, he's going to be numbers-to-numbers all day and you've got to wait until it's 100-percent because you always want to go play when someone is 90-percent. We'd love to get him out there but we don't want to have him go out for a few plays and then miss him for another month."
Shanahan went on to say that Ward has gotten better each day in practice and that he had his best day on Friday.
"He's definitely questionable for the game so I'm not sure where he's going to be at," Shanahan continued. "I didn't get a chance to talk to him after practice but that's something I'll do this afternoon and I'm hoping for the best come Sunday."