NFC Notes: Christian McCaffrey, Ernest Jones, 49ers, Rams, Seahawks

49ers

49ers GM John Lynch is hopeful Christian McCaffrey can be activated in time for Week 10’s game against the Buccaneers. 

“I sure hope so,” Lynch said, via Tim Kawakami of the San Francisco Standard. “Christian’s passed every part of the test in our plan. You know, over bye week he stayed here with our trainers. How do you come to work on the bye week? You come when you’ve got guys like him working out and you want to see it. I sat up in my office and watched from afar. He looks great. He’s responded well.”

Lynch notes McCaffrey has predominately worked out with trainers in practice and wants to see how he responds to making football moves. 

“I will say that him doing IR work off to the side with our strength coaches and trainers is different than actually getting on the field. There’s that reactive element to it. Now we’ve gotta put him through that test. Responding to a safety coming up and taking one side of leverage away and he’s gotta make a cut. Those type of things. And can he respond in a good way? Can he feel healthy enough? Can he feel like he can go make an impact and handle the volume we’ve put on him? If so, we won’t hesitate to play him.”

As for Tuesday’s trade deadline, Lynch said they didn’t want to force any moves. San Francisco notably acquired DT Khalil Davis from the Texans. 

“The phones have been active,” Lynch said. “You’re always listening, you’re asking, you’re fielding calls. I think there’s this interesting expectation because we’ve done ’em so much that every year you do it. And that’s not the case. You do it when it makes sense. It seems it’s made sense a lot. And it has helped our team, I will say that.”

• 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan said McCaffrey was limited in Wednesday’s practice today but isn’t experiencing any pain in his Achilles injury, via Adam Schefter. 

Rams

When the Rams elected to trade LB Ernest Jones to the Titans coming out of the preseason, it seemed questionable considering Jones had been a starter since his rookie year and the depth chart behind him was thin. Time has not been kind to the deal. The Rams’ linebackers have struggled mightily and now Jones is back in the division with the Seahawks after another trade. Rams GM Les Snead didn’t want to shed any more light on why Los Angeles sent Jones packing but he admitted they might have erred. 

“Being [an] active [GM] right now and Ernest being in the league, there were many variables that went into that. I don’t think it’s good for anyone to sit here and really make that public,” Snead said via USA Today’s Cameron DaSilva. “It’s always, in our case, what we do – we try to think it’s definitely going to help the Rams in some form or fashion. Again, there are many variables in that but it’s obvious – and we saw him last week – Ernest can play football. He’s going to continue playing football and at this point, we’re going to play him again this year. Depending on what happens with him in the future, we might play him twice a year for a lot of years and expect that with him. That’s just the kind of person he is and obviously the talents that he has.”

Seahawks

• The Seahawks worked out three tight ends this week including N’Keal Harry, Tyree Jackson and Tre’ McKitty while they also hosted Gerrit Prince for a visit, per Howard Balzer.