It's a good thing that San Francisco 49ers rookie wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk got a little offseason work in with his quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo. His training camp was cut short by a hamstring injury.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan is optimistic that Aiyuk will be suited up and ready to go for Week 1 against the Arizona Cardinals, which is just nine days away. He'll need to get back onto the practice field next week, though. Typically, failing to practice at all, leading to a game, will severely diminish a player's odds of playing.
Shanahan said on Wednesday that he hopes to get both Aiyuk and second-year wideout Deebo Samuel back next week. The latter suffered a Jones fracture in June but has been seen ramping up his workload during rehab.
Aiyuk hasn't had the benefit of a normal offseason. Typically, a rookie would have already received significant on-field work before reporting to training camp. COVID-19, of course, changed that.
Jimmy Garoppolo was asked on Wednesday what he saw out of Aiyuk before the injury. The quarterback praised the first-year player.
"[Brandon], when he's out there, he's ready to play," Garoppolo said. "He's always ready, always prepared mentally, physically. He's able to bring an element to the game. It's unique.
"He's so long, his catch radius, you can put the ball anywhere around him, he's going to make a play on it. And so, it's nice having a guy like that. That little comfort blanket, who he's going to make the tough catches, the contested catches, and make you look good doing it."
Shanahan joined KNBR on Thursday and didn't sound too concerned last week about Aiyuk missing valuable time.
"You've got a guy like Aiyuk, who if you had told me he pulled his hamstring and missed training camp, I'd have huge concerns about him," Shanahan said on the Tolbert, Kruger & Brooks show. "What is good about Aiyuk is that the two weeks that he did get in, and how prepared he was for those two weeks, he didn't just show up to camp and expect to take a couple of weeks to get into it.
"He really spent his offseason in Zoom meetings, and his time away from us, where he wasn't allowed to see us, he really took advantage of that time. So he had a good two weeks, which will give him a chance to, when he comes back and healthy as a rookie, to where maybe he does have a chance to get out there. Where if you are a rookie and you miss all of camp, that's just too much to put on a guy."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Shanahan below.