Dee Ford out for at least a week with knee tendinitis

[KC Wolf]

The team that has had more than a few players with knee issues has another player with a knee issue. And it’s the team’s highest-profile free-agent acquisition for 2019.

Pass-rusher Dee Ford, tagged and traded by the Chiefs and paid a large pile of money by the 49ers, will miss time with knee tendinitis. Coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters on Friday that Ford will be gone for a week, at a minimum.

“I believe he got his [platelet-rich plasma treatment], believe he got his PRP already, so I think that’ll be some time,” Shanahan said. “I know we’re looking at it day to day, but that usually takes at least a week. But it’s something that I think will end up helping him. He could’ve toughed it out and stuff and gone through it like a lot of guys try to do, because guys are trying to make the team and they’re trying to get better, but we feel good about where Dee Ford’s at, and we wanted to make sure we took care of that so he could be fresh going into the year.”

Shanahan was asked whether the team knew about potential knee problems before trading a 2020 second-round pick for Ford. The response didn’t include a denial.

“I mean, you hear about wear and tear on guys,” Shanahan said. “I mean, you get every medical report that they’ve ever had from their trainers and stuff and that’s been on lists and everything, so you hear about all of that. But we have a number of guys with stuff like that. I mean, [Joe] Staley’s gone through stuff like that and usually you’ve got to do something like what we did once in the year and we thought it would be better to do it sooner than later.”

It would be even better to not have to do it at all, so that Ford could be fully prepared for the start of the season.