Update on Nabers, Skattebo
Before the team took the field, Schoen provided injury updates on a few key contributors, starting with wide receiver Malik Nabers. The star wideout has been working his way back from the knee injury he suffered during Week 4 of last season.
“We’re going to see,” Schoen said about Nabers returning for Week 1. “Again, this is day one here, so we’ve got a really good plan for him. The medical staff has a really good plan for him, and we’re going to, always say listen to the patients. So, we’re going to see how he reacts. And again, we got a good plan in place, so as long as everything goes as planned we’ll listen to the to Malik and his body and again, hopefully he’ll be ready and we’ll see how it plays out. But no predictions right now, just because we have a long way to go, still a lot of camp.”
“We’ll see where he’s at (tomorrow),” Harbaugh added. “Part of it will be that, how it feels, how it responds, how it reacts, all those things. I think our guys, our trainers and staff, will be monitoring. See how the knee responds more than anything. We’ll just take it one day at a time. It was encouraging today.”
Schoen mentioned that the 23-year-old has already been cutting and running routes, so his return to the practice field in some capacity is another step towards his eventual return.
“It was good, man,” Burns said about seeing Nabers on the field. “I mean, it feels good. He’s working to get out there with us. He’s fiending to get back out there and make plays, but I just don’t want him to rush it, so I’ll be on him about taking his time, but it feels good to see him back out there.”
“He definitely has a presence about him,” Dart added. “There’s an aura that he has on the field that is exhilarating. It makes me happy. It makes everybody happy just to see him out there.”
The other big injury update was the return of running back Cam Skattebo, who took part in team drills after his general manager deemed him “good to go” for the start of camp.
“He’ll be out here, he’ll be ready to go today, and he’ll be doing everything,” Schoen noted.
Dart, Skattebo and Nabers played less than one half together before the wideout went down with his season-ending injury. A few weeks later Skattebo got hurt, thus cutting short his rookie campaign. With Skattebo back and Nabers on his way to returning, Dart can’t wait to see what the offense could look like this year.
“It makes me really excited, that’s for sure, because in the short time that we had, as me and Skatt were rookies, there was a lot of energy, there were a lot of explosives, and that’s what kind of player he is,” the second-year quarterback said. “He brings a completely different element to an offense. So, I’m really looking forward to the future, getting him back healthy, because I think the sky is the limit for what we can do.”