NFL 2025: McCaffrey and Parsons Both Questionable for Week 1

• Star players Christian McCaffrey and Micah Parsons are both questionable for NFL Week 1
• Both are essentially irreplaceable and crucial to their teams’ 2025 fortunes
• Can the 49ers and Packers survive without their transcendent stars?
• How serious are their injuries?

McCaffrey’s One Negative: He’s Constantly Hurt

If McCaffrey retired today, he’d have a pretty good Pro Football Hall of Fame case even though he’s only played eight years and just turned 29. He’s a 2X All-Pro and a 3X Pro Bowler with nearly 11,000 combined rushing and receiving yards and 81 TDs.

Still, the battering he takes from his all-out style and the injuries he’s already suffered are piling up.

For NFL 2025 Week 1, he’s questionable for the 49ers’ game with the Seahawks with a calf injury. The club reported that he had a calf issue at the start of the 2024 season, but it was later revealed to be an Achilles problem.

He was limited to four games before a knee injury ended his season and doomed the 49ers.

The ‘Niners took steps to account for McCaffrey’s frequent absences by acquiring Brian Robinson Jr. from the Commanders. They also have talented Isaac Guerendo. But neither is McCaffrey.

If the Seahawks play the rough, hard-hitting defense that their head coach, Mike Macdonald, oversaw as the Ravens’ defensive coordinator, the game will be a tough battle. An effective McCaffrey could mean the difference between winning and losing.

The Packers Put All Their Eggs in the Parsons Basket

Micah Parsons is questionable with a back injury.

The number of “experts” on social media who expound their Wikipedia and WebMD-based medical knowledge, giving an in-depth diagnosis and treatment protocol, is incalculable, but actual sports medicine doctors don’t seem to think this is a long-term problem.

Nevertheless, any back injury needs to be closely monitored. When the player was just acquired as a missing piece for a Packers team that had been relegated to second-tier status as good but not great in the NFC; they surrendered two first-round draft picks and a useful defensive lineman; and paid him a guaranteed $136 million, an injury that compromises him in any way, reducing him to a very good player and not an All-Pro game-breaker, has the potential to be long-term disastrous for the franchise.

Suffice it to say, many people are holding their collective breaths in Titletown.

They need to get off to a good start this season, and they already have a crucial divisional game against the Lions in Week 1.

While Parsons wants to play, the cliché of discretion being the better part of valor fits perfectly. They need to be careful with him, even if the unveiling needs to wait another week.

McCaffrey’s and Parsons’ Questionable Status Impacts Predicting Outcomes

The more important the player, the greater their absence or being compromised influences their projected performance and, by extension, the team’s.

So how will McCaffrey’s and Parsons’ injuries affect the 49ers and Packers, respectively?

What’s your take?

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