The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night to secure their spot in the NFC Championship game for the fourth time in five seasons.
The top-seeded team in the NFC faced a challenging task as they had to overcome a late deficit in the fourth quarter to steal the win from the Packers.
Star wide receiver Deebo Samuel sustained an early injury that did not help the 49ers.
Samuel was evaluated for a head injury sustained during San Francisco’s first drive, but he later returned to the field where he was injured again on the second drive.
This time, Samuel had a shoulder injury that was serious enough to keep him out of the rest of the Divisional Round victory.
“I don’t know yet, we will see tomorrow,” head coach Kyle Shanahan responded when asked about the injury’s severity following the game.
Shanahan’s comparison of Samuel’s shoulder injury against the Cleveland Browns earlier in the season alarmed 49ers supporters.
Samuel was sidelined for two weeks due to the injury, and the 49ers were defeated in both of those games.
Samuel would miss the 49ers’ NFC Championship game against either the Detroit Lions or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers if he is out for two weeks. However, if San Francisco advances to the Super Bowl, Samuel might make a comeback.
“It’s always a huge challenge when you lose one of your best players, but Deebo is a little more unique just because of the way we do use him,” Shanahan said in an interview with NBC following the game.
“The number of persons who can perform such tasks is decreasing. When he leaves so early and plays such a significant role in the strategy—as he always does—you have to rearrange individuals and take on a variety of tasks.
“We still need to perform better than we did, but I think we handled it better today than we did against Cleveland.”
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