It’s very likely, if not guaranteed, that the San Francisco 49ers will be without star receiver Mike Evans against the Dallas Cowboys. 

Evans has been dealing with Achilles tendinitis for the last few weeks. However, it didn’t start that way. Initially, it was simply soreness in his Achilles after his dominant Week 5 outing against the Seattle Seahawks.

He wouldn’t participate in any of the practices for Week 6 against the Washington Commanders, which was concerning. Yet the 49ers saw no issue with it and played Evans anyway, causing his Achilles to worsen. 

You would think that the 49ers would know better after they experienced this issue with Christian McCaffrey two years ago. It’s never worth the risk. Now, Evans has been subjected to Achilles tendinitis, an experience that McCaffrey recently shed light on.

Spoiler — it’s a harsh reality.

Words of discouragement

“It’s tough, man. It sounds like whatever, but it’s a compounding injury,” said McCaffrey. “It can get worse really quickly, and then it can get really debilitating. I had my own experience with it. I hated everything about it. 

“Even just waking up is a battle. You walk into the bathroom, it’s a battle. Depending on how bad it gets. I can’t speak for him. I just know it was tough and you’re wondering why? Why the heck did this happen? What is going on? It’s tough. And it takes a long time to come back.”

Talk about words of discouragement. It makes the 49ers look increasingly foolish for playing Evans against the Commanders when he was already dealing with Achilles soreness.

It would’ve been one thing if it was a late December game against a playoff opponent with the No. 1 seed in the NFC on the line. Those are games worthy of risking players. 

But not in Week 5 against a 1-3-1 Commanders team at home. It reeked of desperation to play Evans. The only bright side is that the 49ers won that game, but at a premium cost.

They haven’t had Evans for two games, and it’s only going to increase further. No one should be surprised if Evans isn’t seen until December. The soonest I think he’ll be active is Nov. 29 at home against Seattle.

Evans will be needed in that game, but even that feels like a stretch. In the meantime, the 49ers will hope that newly acquired receiver Keenan Allen can adapt to the offense quickly to help shrink the hole.