Christian McCaffrey’s surprise inactive designation created quite a stir after Jordan Mason’s comments following the 49ers’ 32-19 win over the New York Jets on Monday at Levi’s Stadium. But it appears the NFL doesn’t seem poised to distribute any discipline for the mix-up.
There is no indication the NFL has opened any formal investigation into the matter, The Athletic’s Matt Barrows reported Tuesday, citing league sources.
Mason made headlines with a career-high 147 rushing yards in San Francisco’s win over New York, although his outstanding performance quickly got overshadowed by a postgame interview with ESPN’s Lisa Salters where the third-year running back stated he knew he would be starting well before McCaffrey was ruled inactive for Monday’s game.
“When did I find out? Maybe Friday night, something like that,” Mason told Salters. “I was always prepared, I mean we went through training camp, I was RB1 in training camp so just being prepared from there.”
During Kyle Shanahan’s postgame press conference, the 49ers coach said Mason wasn’t told he was starting until Monday afternoon.
“I never told Jordan he was going to start,” Shanahan told reporters. “I told him he had to be ready a bunch, but that might have been [49ers running backs coach Bobby Turner] or somebody trying to pump him up, but I knew he was going to have to play a lot. I told him it wasn’t going to be like usual, he was going to be a No. 2 back that was splitting a lot of the time. But no, he didn’t know for sure he was doing that until today.”
The NFL rulebook states that teams are required to provide “accurate” and “specific” information about injured players that are made available to opponents as well as media.
“The policy requires that teams provide credible, accurate, and specific information about injured players to the league office, their opponents, local and national media, and the league’s broadcast partners each week during the regular season and postseason,” per the NFL’s official operations website (h/t Sporting News).
For now, it seems the NFL hasn’t found any wrongdoing with the 49ers’ handling of their injury report leading up to Monday’s game against the Jets.
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