There is one label in sports that a player never wants to get linked to.
It is the “injury prone” label. Having that label is proof of unreliability and takes a lot of time to shake off. Unfortunately for San Francisco 49ers rookie Ricky Pearsall, he’s starting to trend towards that injury prone status.
Pearsall hasn’t played in a single NFL game yet and he’s already sustaining injuries at an alarming rate. It all started during offseason team activities when he donned the blue no-contact jersey. At the time it was unclear what his injury was.
While it was welcoming to see him still able to participate in practice, he still sustained an injury that limited him. Following that, Pearsall suffered a hamstring injury that landed him on the non-football injury list. He missed the first week of training camp as a result of it. Thankfully it wasn’t any longer than that as he returned with a prime opportunity in front of him.
That opportunity is absorbing the reps that would go to Brandon Aiyuk. But once again, Pearsall found himself hurt. He injured his shoulder during practice on Aug. 6 that ended up costing him the last half of the session. Kyle Shanahan ended up revealing that it was the same shoulder injury that limited him during OTAs.
The severity of the injury is still unknown, but it is enough to hold him out of practice all week as well as the first preseason game against the Tennessee Titans. Pearsall has endured a total of three injuries since he started practicing with the 49ers. I’m not going to call him injury prone yet, but it’s difficult to deny that he isn’t trending in that direction.
Now, Pearsall could easily be good to go for Week 1 of the regular season and have a clean bill of health for the entire season. Even if he misses a couple of games, he’ll still have created some distance from the injury prone label.
However, given the way his body has been holding up so far, the chances are that he gets hurt again. He’s already reinjured the same shoulder and dealt with a hamstring strain. These are two injuries worth closely monitoring when the regular season arrives to see if it pops back up again.
Should a new injury arise, then he will be borderline an injury prone player.
