Christian McCaffrey has been fighting through a calf injury as he prepares for the San Francisco 49ers' 2024 season. It's not an ideal way to get going on a new campaign but there isn’t a bunch of concern.

McCaffrey has eluded injuries for the most part after previously dealing with several major ones during his final few years with the Carolina Panthers. He wants to keep playing for a long time and he should be able to because of how amazing he is. Once he's cleared to get going again, he'll make up for lost time.

49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan explained that the ceaseless work McCaffrey has put in allows him to get back into the swing of things easier.

“That’s what's good when you’re that obsessive about everything,” Shanahan said. “When you’re hurt, you’re hurt. You can’t go. But when you take every rep, every walk-through, everything you do, you’re just so deliberate and everything. When he's, probably, walking down the aisle to get married, he's probably thinking about his feet and how to do routes — no offense to Olivia. But he’s obsessed with it. When you do get in these situations where you do get hurt and you can’t do all that stuff, at least he’s put the work in before, so that stuff does come back fast.”

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Christian McCaffrey in good place to return from injury because of previous hard work

If McCaffrey truly was thinking about football during his wedding, he did a good job hiding it because every indication was that it went off without a hitch — well, aside from the NFL superstar and the model actually getting hitched themselves, of course. Anywho…

The 49ers are still dealing with the Brandon Aiyuk contract ordeal, which seems to be moving at half-speed. Losing their best receiver is already going to be a big blow to the offense. McCaffrey's already sky-high importance to the team has grown. He may not have the preseason to help him get ready but he does have years of experience as one of the absolute best football players on the planet.

Obsession with the craft is a great thing for the 49ers and their superstar running back. Kyle Shanahan said that Christian McCaffrey “understands what it takes to play in this game, especially at the level he does. Not many people play at that level unless they are like that.”