San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw, who played with Denver last season, runs a drill during training camp in Santa Clara on Friday.
Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
Dre Greenlaw shoved San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey out of bounds Friday during a training-camp practice. McCaffrey sprang to his feet and shoved Greenlaw in the chest.
Greenlaw did something remarkable: nothing.
The linebacker whose on-field combustibility has produced seven career unnecessary-roughness penalties and two ejections declined to retaliate. His restraint prompted a question the next day: Why didn’t he return the favor after McCaffrey, one of the NFL’s best players, shoved him?
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“Honestly, my (thought) process was like, ‘You better not touch 2-3,’” Greenlaw said. “‘Or you might not be on this team.’”
He was joking. But only partly. Greenlaw isn’t about to squander this opportunity. It could be his last.
Greenlaw, 29, returned to the 49ers in March on a one-year, $6 million contract after a brutal 614-day span in which an Achilles tear and then a torn quadriceps limited him to two games, neither of which he finished. The injuries did more than interrupt his career. They sent him spiraling.
“Went definitely through a depression, man,” Greenlaw said.
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Greenlaw’s year away from the 49ers unfolded largely out of view in the Bay Area. On Saturday, he filled in the details. Most were painful.
The Broncos signed Greenlaw to a three-year, $31.5 million contract in March 2025 despite his extensive injury history. He had played just 34 snaps the previous season and missed 36 of 100 games during six years with the 49ers. He arrived in Denver determined to reward the Broncos’ faith.
Then, on the second day of their offseason program, Greenlaw said, his quadriceps tore “off the bone.”
“It definitely was a real, real low moment,” Greenlaw said. “Because you’re excited to go and prove to them what you can do — (you are) all of the things that they say you are. But once I got the quad, they’d tried their best to support me through the process, but it just wasn’t healing the right way.”
Greenlaw suggested his eagerness to prove himself contributed to his prolonged recovery. The injury did not require surgery, but it was slow to heal because he was aggressive in his rehab. He returned to practice in late July, aggravated the quadriceps days later and experienced another setback while running as part of his rehabilitation before a preseason game against the 49ers. He ultimately missed Denver’s first six regular-season games.
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“I ended up messing it up again,” Greenlaw said.
Denver released Greenlaw after he played in eight games and had 43 tackles, one sack and one interception. He didn’t deliver. And he indicated he didn’t feel comfortable. Of the 49ers he said, there’s “no place like San Fran.”
“I don’t have to go out there and do more,” Greenlaw said. “I don’t have to go prove it to nobody. … I have to go play football still. But I don’t have to go out there and overdo and prove to them that I’m a football player, or who I am as a person. I think that’s going to help a lot.”
Greenlaw tore his Achilles during the 49ers’ overtime Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs after the 2023 season. After a 10-month rehab, he played in two late-season games during the 2024 season before his quadriceps travails delayed his Denver debut last year to mid-October.
“Going to Broncos, I’m thinking ‘This is the year I’m finally going to make it happen,’” he said.
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Greenlaw is confident this will be the year he finally makes it happen. It nearly has to be. He knows a third consecutive injury-plagued season could leave him with limited options in free agency in 2027, when he will turn 30.
For now, Greenlaw said he has not felt this good physically since January 2024, when his Achilles began bothering him in the weeks before the Super Bowl.
“It’s been one (injury) after another, one after another, and I’ve just been playing catch-up the whole time,” Greenlaw said. “But I just feel like I’m where I need to be now.”