49ers place Elijah Mitchell to IR, add Marlon Mack to practice squad
The San Francisco 49ers suffered yet another major injury to a running back in Week 1 of the regular season, losing 2021 leading rusher Elijah Mitchell to a knee injury. This is the second season in a row that the Niners have lost the leading rusher from the previous season in Week 1, and as was the case last season, Mitchell will be gone for an extended period of time.
Last year, Raheem Mostert, who’s now with the Miami Dolphins, carried the ball two times for 20 yards before leaving the Week 1 game in Detroit versus the Lions. He wound up missing the rest of the season after having knee surgery to clean up a lingering issue.
Stepping into the lead back role for that victory of the Lions was sixth-round draft pick Elijah Mitchell, who ran for 104 yards on 19 carries and a touchdown, securing his place as the 49ers’ bell-cow running back for that season.
Mitchell went on to rush for 963 yards on 207 carries (good for 4.7 yards per carry) over the course of 11 games in his rookie season and looked poised to end the streak of consecutive seasons with a new leading rusher since head coach Kyle Shanahan took over the 49ers in 2017.
All these expectations came even as Mitchell nursed an injury and didn’t feature at all during the team’s preseason games and mostly skipped out on training camp altogether. Nothing to be worried about, however. The 49ers knew what they had in Mitchell and he would be ready for Week 1 in Chicago.
And he was ready and he did start and was off to an excellent beginning to his 2022 campaign, running the ball just six times but for 41 yards.
But Mitchell left the game before halftime and never returned. On Tuesday, the 49ers officially placed the running back on injured reserve after ESPN’s Adam Schefter announced, and Shanahan confirmed, that the team expects Mitchell to miss at least two months.
The 49ers bring in running backs for tryouts and sign Marlon Mack.
The 49ers responded by reportedly bringing in a bevy of free agent running backs — among them are former 49ers rusher Tevin Coleman, former Falcon Davonta Freeman, and former Jet La’Mical Perine — before ultimately choosing to bring former Colt and Texans’ standout Marlon Mack to the practice squad.
While Mack struggled to stay on the field during his last two seasons in Indianapolis, when healthy he was a force, rushing for over 900 yards on 195 carries in 2018 and then nearly 1100 yards on 247 carries the following season.
He’s also shown good hands out of the backfield, making him a useful player for the 49ers and Shanahan’s offense.
The Colts actually drafted Mack in 2017 with a 4th round pick (no.143) that they got from the 49ers, who were trading up to grab ill-fated Utah running back Joe Williams earlier in the round (no.121). Now Mack has a chance to make a difference in the 2022 49ers season.
Mack was signed by the Texans this offseason before ultimately getting waived and finding himself on the Houston practice squad. They opted to release him on September 5, making him available to join the 49ers in this time of crisis.
Whether the Niners opt to roll with just Jeff Wilson alongside rookies Tyrion Davis-Price (who didn’t make the active roster on Sunday) and Jordan Mason for their Week 2 home opener against the Seattle Seahawks remains to be seen.
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But Mack is a solid enough veteran to step in if he is elevated as part of the active roster. And it wouldn’t be a surprise if he eventually overtakes Wilson as the 49ers’ number option until Mitchell returns.