Addressing a report that some teams didn’t think Reuben Foster’s surgically repaired shoulder will hold up in 2017, Kyle Shanahan on Thursday acknowledged a “worst-case scenario” in which the linebacker has a second surgery that scuttles his rookie year.
“The worst-case scenario is that the shoulder doesn’t heal correctly and you’ve got to do it again,” the 49ers coach said on KNBR radio. “And then you have to do it again, you have to get another surgery. It would be tough to play this year, and you end up having him the next year.”
“But it’s not something that would hurt him long-term,” Shanahan said. “So the worst-case scenario, he wouldn’t end up being able to play for us right away. But I still don’t think that would have changed how I personally felt about taking a guy with the 31st pick with the caliber of player that we took.”
On Wednesday an ESPN report cited sources that worried the offseason surgery Foster had to repair a torn rotator cuff “didn’t take.”
Shanahan said the 49ers team doctors had a different assessment of the shoulder — it was healing properly.
“They thought it was recovering well,” he said. “They didn’t have the same report a lot of other teams did. You never know who is going to end up being right. Everyone is trying to do their best to figure it out. But no one can tell the future. I just look at it as — you go with what your doctors say.”
Other items from Shanahan:
* He said another 49ers linebacker recovering from surgery, NaVorro Bowman, who last year tore his Achilles, is doing better than expected. “I couldn’t be more excited with Bo than I am right now,” Shanahan said. “He’s been winning our drills, our shuttles. … Just to come out there and watch him. He does not look like a guy coming off an Achilles. I thought it would take him some time. I did not think he’d be looking (like) himself until training camp. He looks a lot better than I was expecting early.”
* He said that in addition to the 49ers’ 10-man draft class, the team’s rookie minicamp this week will include 40 undrafted rookies and other rookies who will take part on a tryout basis. He noted that receiver Taylor Gabriel, receiver Brandon Banks and cornerback K’waun Williams all were former tryout players at his previous coaching stops who made active rosters and appeared in NFL games. The 49ers, in fact, signed Williams earlier this year. “There’s a lot of guys you can find out of it,” he said of what he called a ‘tryout camp’. “Usually there’s one or two. The main thing is it gives our rookies a chance to get ahead.”
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