49ers news: The Niners will be careful with Christian McCaffrey’s calf injury

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan provided injury updates for Christian McCaffrey, Jauan Jennings, Talanoa Hufanga, Trent Williams, and Aaron Banks on a conference call after Monday night’s 32-19 win over the New York Jets.

Banks left the game late in the third quarter. He’ll be day-to-day with a calf contusion. Spencer Burford played the remaining few series at left guard and looked assertive, comfortable, and at home on the left side.

NBC Sports Bay Area’s Jordan Elliott tweeted that he spoke to Burford about the move back to the left side in the locker room after the game. Burford said it felt “natural” playing on the left side again because he had been doing it for so long before entering the NFL. Burford entered the NFL as a left tackle, a position he predominantly played as an upperclassman at UTSA.

Wide receiver Jauan Jennings is day to day with an ankle. It looked like Jennings was a victim of the new “hip drop” tackle, but there was no penalty, and Jennings never returned. Jennings was featured more than usual. His five targets were tied for second on the team with George Kittle and Brandon Aiyuk.

Shanahan isn’t impressed by many things on the football field. He’s seen it all, but even Shanahan spoke about Trent Williams’ effectiveness and stamina without needing a training camp:

“It’s really tough to do. Watching him for four practices, you never know how someone is going to come back when you haven’t seen them for that long. Just watching him at that Monday practice and how he was by the Wednesday practice,gave us a good sign that he was going to be all right in the game.

We didn’t know how his wind was going to be. We knew he was in shape, but football shape is a totally different deal. We had some long drives, so that became a challenge for him as we got closer there towards the end.”

Shanahan said, “Definitely, I believe if it was a playoff game, he would have played,” about McCaffrey:

“But it’s not just the calf. It’s the Achilles, and the Achilles has tendonitis, and that stuff comes and goes. When it’s acting up, it’s something you’ve got to be very careful about, and Christian is very diligent about that stuff.

If it was a playoff game, he made it very clear to me that he believed he could go, but when you hear that type of stuff, and it’s not a playoff game, and it’s Week 1, especially when you’re dealing with the lower extremities like that.

It was a tough decision, but hearing all the words and stuff in the long run made it easy.”

Shanahan remains committed to running the ball. He gushed about the improvements Mason has made during his 49ers tenure and said, “It makes it that much easier to keep feeding him the rock” the way Mason was running the ball against the Jets.

Hufanga practiced last week. Shanahan said the plan is to continue to work with him. “He has a chance this week, but we won’t make that decision until later in the week. Hopefully, he has another good week.”

McCaffrey is officially day-to-day with his calf/Achilles, as are Yetur Gross-Matos and Dee Winters: “Hopefully, they can get back into practice this week, but we’re really not sure until they do their rehab this afternoon.”