Red flags may not have gone up, but they were certainly at the ready Friday when early reports from Day 3 of 49ers training camp said both Nick Bosa and Jalen Hurd weren’t in attendance for individual drills the way they had been to start camp. Their absences were both scheduled according to head coach Kyle Shanahan, and the red flags were put away.
Shanahan said Bosa and Hurd were both given maintenance days as the club eases them back into a larger workload. Both players have been going through individual work with their position groups to start camp. That’s not the only precaution they’ll take though with scheduled maintenance days every third day. There’s still no timeline on when they’ll be in team drills.
The 49ers’ head coach elaborated some on what the plan is with Bosa specifically, saying the team is not setting a timeline and instead taking it a day at a time.
“I mean all his plans so far, but we haven’t set a date where, hey, this is the day you start. We’re doing the individual, I think every third day’s a maintenance day, I think,” Shanahan said. “But I also, I’m going to count on Nick on that the most. I know Nick, we don’t have to make a lot of decisions for him when it comes to football. He’s thinking about his body and what’s right 24-7. I think it’s tough when you’ve got younger guys that you need to develop a lot and also protect.”
Not putting a date for a return takes the onus off Bosa to be pressured into returning even if he doesn’t feel right. He tore his ACL last September so he’s still less than a year removed from the injury. The third-year defensive end says he plans to be ready for Week 1 in Detroit, and that’ll continue to be the goal even if it means scheduled maintenance days and a couple weeks without team drills in camp.
