good news for the 49ers here from the facility yur gross Matos and D Winters are both back out at practice gross Matos the defensive end dealing with the knee injury he's got a sleeve over the affected knee and D Winters coming back from an ankle injury I didn't see any tape or wrap on his ankle he look to be moving around at full speed so general rule is if a player can practice on Thursday ahead of a Sunday game Thursday is the most strenuous day of the week typically is a very good sign for his availability in that Sunday game now gross MOS the fort Anders brought him in as a free agent from Carolina and they are looking at him in the ardan key Charles am menu role where he lines up at defensive end on base downs but he's got the versatility and athleticism to move inside on some of those uh nickel Downs or some of those pass rushing downs and he could work against guards when the 49ers move into their NASCAR package they really like that defensive end athleticism working against interior lineman and gross MOS has enough size to be able to fend for himself on the inside when the 49ers do make that alignment so this makes their defensive line even stronger I know the D line looked very good to begin the season against the Jets but this is a whole new test against the Minnesota Vikings who've got a lot of good offensive linemen they were number three in pass block win rate last year Christian darasa is the headliner at the left tackle position we'll see him against Nick Bosa we'll see him against Leonard Floyd and we'll probably see some Christian darasa against etur gross Matos in this game as well D Winters if he's active for the 49ers this weekend expect more on special teams from him the third linebacker right now is Demetrius Flanigan Foles and it will stay that way unless there's an injury but D Winters returning gives the 49ers another option in the pipeline at the linebacker position he showed a lot of promise this off season D did the seconde player out of TCU but I think you know there's some high highs and we saw the big hit on will Levis against the Titans but uh it's there's still a lower floor there he's still working to raise that floor as a player there were some misplays that we saw from him in that week one game of the preseason against Tennessee during which D Winters was featured uh another piece of this is not news but I have to address this because I see this online everybody's saying Christian McCaffrey is back at practice and for some reason everybody caught on to that terminology and it makes it sound like this is Christian mcaffry first day returning to practice from the calf and the Achilles issue and that just isn't true he was at practice yesterday he was at practice all last week so you know phrasing is important and accuracy is important Christian mcaffrey has been back out of practice now for almost two weeks he just missed the game on Monday night because the 49ers decided rightly decided this was very correct thinking on their part that they they don't need him to play if he's not 100% that they need a think about the long term it's a chess move as Christian mcaffrey called it so I don't think that Christian mcaffrey sees the field on game day until he is 100% we'll see if that's Sunday or maybe the following Sunday against the Rams but he's already been back out at practice he looks fine at practice and it wasn't like he's back at practice today like it was some kind of return for Christian mcaffrey those of you who follow me on social media on Twitter or they call it X now you probably heard my announcement this morning this game against Minnesota will be my final game covering the 49ers for the athletic now I'm still going to be covering the 49ers just for a new company the announcement on that front is coming soon I do have to say it's been a fantastic 7 years started in tiny co-working space the athletic did when I signed on in 2017 and I'll share some more memories and more stories obviously we were acquired by the New York Times it's been a major success story over the past seven years and I cannot wait to share with you what is next