There is nothing left to play for in the regular season. The San Francisco 49ers have secured the top seed in the NFL with a week to play.
Next week will likely be of consequence to the 9-7 Los Angeles Rams, who snuck out a last-second win against the Giants (the ones with the stadium and practice facility in New Jersey). It begs questions as to how the 49ers will approach it.
What's clear at the moment is that Christian McCaffrey does not appear likely to be involved in that final game.
McCaffrey suffered a calf injury in the 49ers' 27-10 win over the Washington Commanders, but was spelled in a resurgent performance by Elijah Mitchell. The oft-injured No. 2 back for San Francisco looked as impressive as he has since his record-setting rookie year, with a 17-carry, 80-yard performance that featured his first touchdown of the season.
Shanahan indicated that McCaffrey may miss the final regular season game, but that more information will come tomorrow.
"We think he'll be alright," Shanahan said. "I don't know if he'd be able to go next week or not, we'll have to find out more tomorrow. But he was moving around alright on the sidelines, so hoping it's not too bad."
While it sounds like a straightforward proposition to just rest everyone, Shanahan has expressed reservations about that approach in the past.
Two-straight weeks off could be viewed as detrimental from a performance standpoint when the 49ers return to host in the Divisional Round, potentially against a team like the Rams or Seattle Seahawks, depending on an upset.
While Shanahan said it's impossible to rest everyone, he acknowledged some players will get the game off. He indicated there would be a substantive week of practice, with roster decisions made throughout the week.
"I will definitely try to rest some guys," Shanahan said. "But I mean, you can't rest everybody. It's too hard. You don't have enough players. So we got to field a team without a doubt. And we're gonna have a big week of practice. I still think there's lots of things we got to obviously get a lot better at and the only way you do that is playing football and practicing football. So we'll have a big Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, figure out our roster as the week goes and decide what we'll do for Sunday."
That could potentially, if not likely, mean rest for players like McCaffrey, Trent Williams, other starters, and other players recovering from injury like Arik Armstead, Aaron Banks and Ray-Ray McCloud.