<\/p>\n
San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw, who played with Denver last season, runs a drill during training camp in Santa Clara on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jeff Chiu\/Associated Press<\/p>\n
Dre Greenlaw<\/a> shoved San Francisco 49ers<\/a> running back Christian McCaffrey<\/a> out of bounds Friday during a training-camp practice. McCaffrey sprang to his feet and shoved Greenlaw in the chest.<\/p>\n Greenlaw did something remarkable: nothing.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t he return the favor after McCaffrey, one of the NFL\u2019s best players, shoved him?<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, my (thought) process was like, \u2018You better not touch 2-3,\u2019\u201d Greenlaw said. \u201c\u2018Or you might not be on this team.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He was joking. But only partly. Greenlaw isn\u2019t about to squander this opportunity. It could be his last.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWent definitely through a depression, man,\u201d Greenlaw said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Greenlaw\u2019s year away from the 49ers unfolded largely out of view in the Bay Area. On Saturday, he filled in the details. Most were painful.<\/p>\n 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\u2019 faith.<\/p>\n Then, on the second day of their offseason program, Greenlaw said, his quadriceps tore \u201coff the bone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt definitely was a real, real low moment,\u201d Greenlaw said. \u201cBecause you\u2019re excited to go and prove to them what you can do\u00a0\u2014 (you are) all of the things that they say you are. But once I got the quad, they\u2019d tried their best to support me through the process, but it just wasn\u2019t healing the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s first six regular-season games.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI ended up messing it up again,\u201d Greenlaw said.<\/p>\n Denver released Greenlaw after he played in eight games and had 43 tackles, one sack and one interception. He didn\u2019t deliver. And he indicated he didn\u2019t feel comfortable. Of the 49ers he said, there\u2019s \u201cno place like San Fran.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have to go out there and do more,\u201d Greenlaw said. \u201cI don\u2019t have to go prove it to nobody. \u2026 I have to go play football still. But I don\u2019t have to go out there and overdo and prove to them that I\u2019m a football player, or who I am as a person. I think that\u2019s going to help a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Greenlaw tore his Achilles during the 49ers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing to Broncos, I\u2019m thinking \u2018This is the year I\u2019m finally going to make it happen,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been one (injury) after another, one after another, and I\u2019ve just been playing catch-up the whole time,\u201d Greenlaw said. \u201cBut I just feel like I\u2019m where I need to be now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw, who played with Denver last season, runs a drill during training camp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":962731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,1160,7,6,1161,252,2624,2623],"class_list":["post-962730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco-49ers","tag-49ers","tag-dre-greenlaw","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-sanfrancisco","tag-sanfrancisco49ers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117029264659789475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/962731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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