On Friday morning, San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch shared injury updates during a nearly 25-minute conversation on Bay Area radio station KNBR.
Tackle Trent Williams returned to the practice field on Thursday, his first on-field action since suffering an ankle injury on October 15 against the Cleveland Browns. The offensive lineman missed the last two games.
"Trent, it's been a struggle with the ankle," Lynch told Brian Murphy and Markus Boucher. "When you've played as long as Trent, he's had some ankle injuries. I think the MRIs can be tougher to read because you've got a lot of chronic old stuff that has been in there. So, when you're reading the MRIs, don't want to get into technicalities, but I think it probably was a little more severe than we might have hoped. It's taken some time."
With the team coming off its bye week and preparing to face the Jaguars, Lynch admitted there remains some uncertainty surrounding the status of his All-Pro offensive lineman.
Lynch added, "The welcome site was that we had Trent back out there on a limited basis. I always say this, and it's not just lip service: When you practice hard on Thursday, how does it respond on Friday? How does it respond to a plane flight across the country? All those things kind of you take into account. ... If we can have him, we will, but we've got to check all those boxes, how he responds. Can he continue getting better before Sunday?"
While Williams' status remains up in the air, the 49ers look poised to see Deebo Samuel return after the wide receiver suffered a hairline fracture in his shoulder against the Browns.
"Deebo, that's welcome," Lynch commented. "Obviously, a fantastic player. He adds a lot to us in terms of energy and then just who he is as a player."
The general manager also discussed his linebacker, Dre Greenlaw. This week, it was revealed that painkillers were ineffective when Greenlaw took the field two weeks ago against the Cincinnati Bengals.
"Dre's a difference maker when he's out there," Lynch affirmed. "I think the other thing with Dre, Dre's been battling through some injuries, and I don't care who you are, when you don't get the opportunity to practice, this is a game you have to practice, and if you're just a little off, you're going to get exposed in this league, especially when you're going against a team like Cincy. They've got some top-level athletes, and I think that was the case.
"But I do know that Dre feels a ton better after the bye week, and that's a good thing for us. He plays at such a speed. He's a tone-setter for us, and we want him out there, but we want him out there healthy. And I think we've got a much healthier version of Dre coming in post-bye week than we did in that last time we lined up against Cincy."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Lynch below.
