NFL Insider Tom Pelissero on Possible McCaffrey/Russell Wilson Injury Returns | The Rich Eisen Show

so let's uh Turn the Page here last national televised game we saw was the 49ers without Christian mcaffrey putting the bang thing on the Jets is mcaffrey GNA sit out another week do you think he certainly is talking rich like a guy who if it were up to him would be on the field I think it's fair to say that if Christian mcaffrey gets cut looser whenever they put him on the field he's not going to be the load carrying 25 touch guy that he might normally be and that was evidenced by his backup who initially stepped into a little something when he said he'd been told on Friday that he was going to start Kyle Shanahan cleaned that up by saying no I told him he was going to play a lot in other words they know that Christian mcaffry he's managing both a calf injury and achilles tendonitis that's not something that's just going to disappear it's not like it's an MCL spraying three weeks and Brace it up and he'll be back out there it's something that he's going to have to manage if you look at the schedule they're on the road the next two weeks both games on Turf in Minnesota and then against the rant at Sofi Stadium I know mcaffrey kind of pushed back against that saying it's not like I can run on grass and not on Turf if I can go I can go he's putting himself and he's approaching the week as if he's going to play but it's a long season they won last week without him I would anticipate that they take the same cautious approach and if he's turned loose here Rich to play on Sunday I would imagine that he'd see in a time share in which he's not the even getting the heaviest workload so that'll be uh something to keep an eye on um early window so you know you and I at uh uh at I guess 11:30 in the morning Eastern Time on NFL game day morning we'll be keeping an eye on on that active inactive report coming out of Minnesota who's going to be the Steelers starter at quarterback this week in Denver Tom it's interesting here Rich because Mike Tomlin flat out said it on Tuesday Russ is hurt he's not available to us so we are preparing Justin fields to be the starter usually when you follow just kind of the history of Tomlin speak that's a pretty good indication that the guy who's been healthy through the week is going to get the start remember we kind of went through this last year with Kenny picket where one of the tomlinisms is always the participation will be our guide well Russell Wilson still hasn't gone through a full practice since he reag grav that calf injury during the early stages of last week now I also can tell you they legitimately took it up to game day last Sunday and sometimes teams say game time decision and really they've made made that decision Friday or Saturday last week Russ went through a pregame workout he told them I can do this I can go out there and play but looking at a Russell Wilson who's not 100% with an injury that easily could be aggravated and get a lot worse relative to Justin Fields who now we've seen play in this new offense he protected the football he didn't have any of those hellacious Justin Fields razzled Dazzle run around the field types of plays but he was the main source of their run game against Atlanta he showed that he can play stake free football and that's the way that they're built which is run the football play really good defense and make enough plays in the passing game all of which is to say I don't know that Justin Fields is going to take over the job last year Kenny picket never was restored and Mason Rudolph ended up starting a playoff game but at minimum here again we'll see what the participation report says today but the fact that Russ hasn't gone through a full practice would indicate to me that we are not going to get the Revenge game that we were all circling on the calendar in week two against the Broncos it more than likely will be Justin Fields who rich Let's remember little bit of a Revenge game right they took Patrick ceran over Justin Fields a lot of people were saying you should take Fields Broncos just extended Patrick ceran Justin Fields now going back in there on his second NFL team I like you trying to stir something up to put a little bit of juice on it no no I'm sure Justin Fields is thinking about that but you know and CER Tan's no slouch uh but you know uh for Russ definitely circled this thing I mean there's no question he wants to play in it so what happened like he pushed a sled in in training camp and and this is still lingering is that is that what this is from Tom it was the day that players reported or the day after whatever the conditioning test was they have a new strength coach who byy and large by the way has been great for them but in this case part of the new conditioning test they did was have the players push a blocking sled which is normally not something that the quarterback is going to do well Russ who has been doing everything the same way as everybody else I know A lot's been talked about how things were set up in Seattle how things were set up in Denver he has approached this as hey I'm doing everything that everybody else is doing in hindsight maybe don't have the 34 year old quarterback pushing a blocking sled in the uh conditioning drill there but yeah he he tweaked the calf it didn't feel right he didn't take full Reps for a couple of weeks there and then kind of reintegrated and then last I want to say it was on Wednesday maybe it was Thursday but early on in the week he started to feel a little something in the calf again he didn't think it was a big deal but whenever you have a a calf injury that then you're a month or so six weeks removed from then you say hey it's feeling tight that's a red flag particularly to a team that's as medically conservative as the Steelers are and so they're continuing to bring him back they don't want this to be something that lingers throughout the entire season and there have been plenty of quarterbacks who have tried to play through calf injuries Aaron Rogers right at the top of the list you know he played through one back in 2014 I believe it was and by the time they got to the NFC championship game he couldn't even stand up on his tiptoes that's how bad the calf had gotten this calf still looks kind of mutilated to this day that's not to say that Russell Wilson it's nothing that significant it doesn't sound like they've considered putting them on injured reserve to this point but given the fact that you're one and0 you're going into Denver you really want to take any type of a chance here especially because Justin Fields gave you what you needed last week catch the rich eyes and show every single day on the Roku Channel 1200 to 3 Eastern for free