The San Francisco 49ers have another season-ending injury that happened before their season has even started. Defensive tackle Alfred Collins showed up on the injury report this week, and Kyle Shanahan later said it’s a torn patellar tendon suffered Monday. Collins will now be out for the season.
This marks another season-ending injury before the season has even started.
This certainly doesn’t bode well for the 49ers’ injury concerns and for Collins, who had flashes in 2025 but needed to get some consistency
going in his second season as a pro.
Ricky Pearsall’s season ended in August after the team decided he needed surgery for his PCL. Mykel Williams is on the PUP list. Collins becomes the latest player on a rookie contract to miss significant time with a season-ending injury.
The most recent example of an NFL player who weighs over 300 pounds missing time with a torn patellar tendon was Los Angeles Chargers offensive tackle Rashawn Slater. He missed the entire 2025 regular season after sustaining the injury in August 2025. His recovery time was 10 to 12 months. Slater returned to practice for the Chargers OTAs in June.
If all goes well, Collins will be ready for training camp in 2026. Unfortunately, for Collins, things don’t usually go well when we’re talking about athletes returning from patellar tendon injuries.
According to a recent study from 2025, 85.7% of the athletes return but fail to start as many games as they did before the injury, while another 76.8% fail to return to their previous performance level.
The 49ers have Osa Odighizuwa, but the spot next to him seems a bit ambiguous. CJ West, Gracen Halton, and James Thompson Jr. are on the depth chart, but Thompson hasn’t been practicing. According to Kyle Shanahan, Thompson Jr.’s availability will be determined by how Wednesday’s practice goes for the undrafted free agent.
A practice squad call-up is probably in the cards with both injuries. The options include Sebastian Valdez and Kevin Givens.
The 49ers are currently in Melbourne, Australia, preparing for the Los Angeles Rams. For Collins, this just sucks on a number of levels, especially days before his season gets started.
Last year, when the 49ers were on the road against the Rams, Collins helped stop the Rams from scoring on the 49ers’ own goal line, one of many impact plays the 49ers made to win a game many did not see them winning. Seeing a repeat would have been nice, but it won’t be happening this year.
Next man up, I guess.
