The San Francisco 49ers may have to navigate the rest of the 2024 season with a pair of young players holding down the back end of their secondary.
Strong safety Talanoa Hufanga was placed on IR after suffering torn wrist ligaments in the 49ers’ Week 5 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. It initially sounded like there was optimism he’d be back, but the Athletic’s Mike Silver reported the team doesn’t anticipate Hufanga returning this season.
Silver later reported Hufanga’s agent believes the safety will aim to play with a cast “in a few weeks.”
If Hufanga doesn’t play again in 2024, it would mark two seasons in a row cut short by season-ending injuries. In 2023 he suffered a torn ACL in Week 11 that wound up costing him the rest of 2023 and the first two weeks of this season. He returned from the ACL tear in Week 3, turned his ankle in practice before Week 4 and missed that game, then hurt his wrist in Week 5 to complete a string of brutal injury luck.
It may also mark the end of Hufanga’s time in San Francisco.
The 2021 fifth-round pick is in the final year of his rookie contract, and the 49ers have used two mid-round draft picks on safeties in each of the last two drafts – an indication they anticipated losing Hufanga in free agency after the 2024 campaign.
Without Hufanga, 2023 third-round pick Ji’Ayir Brown and rookie fourth-round pick Malik Mustapha will hold down the two starting safety spots.
