When is a hold in not a hold in, but still kind of a hold in?
49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, who has missed more than a week of practice due to unspecified "tightness," officially isn't refusing to practice in order to get a contract adjustment following the recent market-setting deals signed by Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs. That's what coach Kyle Shanahan said on Tuesday.
For starters, how many times do we have to see the words of a coach become contradicted by subsequent developments before the initial reaction to self-serving statements is suspicion? Shanahan gains nothing for himself or his team by saying, "Yeah, I don't buy that he's too injured to practice. I think he's trying to improve a deal that has no remaining guarantees and that pays out only $12.5 million this year."
Two years ago, Shanahan consistently downplayed a real McCaffrey injury until he was suddenly scratched from a Week 1 Monday night game. People were upset. McCaffrey had been listed as questionable for the game. The sudden news that landed 90 minutes before kickoff sent the fantasy-football crowd scrambling for a replacement after...
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