49ers reveal unfortunate 'longshot' Mykel Williams news for Week 1 originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here. The San Francisco 49ers have been one of the more banged-up teams in the NFL the last few seasons, and heading into the 2026 NFL season, that's not changed. They're dealing with a plethora of injuries to the roster on both sides of the ball. But it's not just new injuries; it's those from last year as well. Ricky Pearsall is out for the year already, and now an unfortunate update on Mykel Williams has come out too. According to Vic Tafur of The Athletic, Kyle Shanahan announced that Williams is a "longshot" for the 49ers' Week 1 matchup, despite what he described as "progressing well" ahead of the 2026 season. Mykel Williams 'longshot' to play Week 1 for 49ers "Shanahan now says Week 1 is a 'longshot' for DE Mykel Williams (knee), but 'he is progressing well.' #49ers," Tafur reports. This update isn't a good one for the 49ers' 2025 first-round pick taken at No. 11 overall. Williams, the 22-year-old edge rusher out of Georgia, is looking likely to miss Week 1 of the regular season. With that first game happening overseas in Australia, it's not a huge surprise that the 49ers might be holding him back from being active for that game, as they could with George Kittle as well. MORE: Will George Kittle be ready for Week 1? 49ers TE explains why he has 'chance' to play vs. Rams The issue, however, is that if he's a long shot for Week 1, there's some real question about whether he'd be ready to go for the next couple of weeks. It might not be a huge surprise if Williams, who played in just nine games in his rookie season, were to land on the injured reserve to begin the year, missing the minimum four games. That would sting, not to have Williams for Weeks 1-4, but placing him on IR would give the 49ers an extra roster spot to utilize and give Williams as much time to recover as possible. It's a long season, and the 49ers should not rush the first-round edge rusher back from this torn ACL injury that cut his rookie season short. More NFL news:
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