It’s not looking good for Nick Bosa. The San Francisco 49ers have a lot riding on the defensive end this year, especially because of his ability to get to the passer. However, after missing all but three games last season because of an ACL tear, the 28-year-old has struggled to stay on the field this summer.
While the 49ers haven’t described a major setback, soreness has kept Bosa off the field since Aug. 5. He sat out Tuesday’s joint practice against Tennessee, his fifth consecutive absence, and the silence around a player who still hasn’t taken a team rep this summer is starting to draw outside attention.
Nick Bosa’s Knee Is a Real Problem for the 49ers Defense
Is 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan downplaying Bosa’s fitness issues? Last Saturday, he addressed why the defensive end was sidelined, saying, “He was doing great, and then he got sore just going through some of the individuals. You wish that didn’t happen, but no, there’s no concern to where something’s happened that is a big setback or anything.”
“We’ll wait until the soreness goes away and evaluate why the soreness has happened, but I still feel pretty good about that.”
However, not everyone has an optimistic appraisal of the situation.
NFL Media analyst Gregg Rosenthal wrote on X, “Nick Bosa not seen at 49ers practice for almost a week feels like a problem.” That’s not a report, and Rosenthal didn’t present it as one. It’s a read on a silence that keeps getting longer.
The Pearsall precedent is three weeks old. John Lynch said the receiver came through the offseason fine, ramped up to full speed right before camp, and swelled up almost immediately once the competition started. Six days after the first practice, Pearsall was on injured reserve headed for PCL surgery.
Nick Bosa not seen at 49ers practice for almost a week feels like a problem
— Gregg Rosenthal (@greggrosenthal) August 11, 2026
Skepticism is warranted, because the knee in question has been rebuilt twice. Bosa partially tore his right ACL as a high school senior in 2015, tore his left in Week 2 of the 2020 season, then tore the right one again last September. Soreness in that joint carries weight that soreness in a hamstring does not.
The stakes are the reason anyone is counting practices. San Francisco finished last in the NFL with 20 sacks in 2025, and the roster around Bosa got younger, not more proven.
The encouraging part is how he looked physically before the shutdown. “I couldn’t even tell he had an injury or he came back from anything,” All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams said on the first day of camp. “Most people with a knee injury that catastrophic, you come back, you can see it in the atrophy in the muscle and the leg. Bosa looks better than he did before he got hurt last year.”
Back in 2024, Bosa landed #15 in PFN’s DE Impact Rankings after suiting up for 14 games. But injury woes limited him to feature just thrice last year, as he struggled to make an impact for the 49ers.
49ers Injury List Grows Ahead of Titans Preseason Opener
Bosa isn’t the only absence. Christian McCaffrey sat out Monday with what the team called tightness, the first practice he’d missed all camp. “A little sore, but he’s doing fine, so just kind of managing him as we go,” offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said.
The backfield behind him has thinned out to almost nothing. Jordan James has fractured ribs, Kaelon Black has an adductor injury and Isaac Guerendo remains on PUP with a torn pectoral, leaving Patrick Taylor Jr., Sincere McCormick and recently signed veteran Khalil Herbert as the only healthy backs on an eight-man depth chart. San Francisco worked out Nyheim Hines and Zamir White on Monday and hosted Blake Watson for a visit.
The irony is that this camp was built to prevent exactly this. Kubiak said the staff restructured the schedule to eliminate three-practice blocks, so veterans wouldn’t need rest days and everyone could work every session. “It was a team thing,” he said, “and just talking to people around the league and looking at how people do camp, we just thought it was a smart adjustment.” Eleven practices in, the injury report reads like every other year in Santa Clara.
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Tennessee visits Levi’s Stadium on Thursday, and Bosa will not be anywhere near that field. Nobody expected him to be. The question is whether he practices before the 49ers fly to Melbourne for Week 1 against the Rams on Sept. 10, because a pass rusher coming off a third ACL reconstruction who hasn’t taken a team rep since January is not a player anyone should be projecting confidently in August.
