San Francisco rookie wide receiver Ricky Pearsall continues to make remarkable physical strides less than a week after being the victim of an armed robbery attempt in San Francisco. The 49ers first-round pick suffered a gunshot wound to the chest during Saturday's incident, was back at the 49ers headquarters on Monday following his hospital release and on Thursday afternoon was on the sidelines watching his fellow wideouts as they were running individual drills.
At one point, Pearsall even walked out to the practice field to dap up his teammates after they caught passes.
"He's as tough a person I know, just going through a situation like that," Head coach Kyle Shanahan said in his weekly press conference. "We always felt this way watching him on the football field, but to watch how he handled that situation and watch how he's been every day since, it shows how special of a guy he is."
The 49ers swift decision to place Pearsall on the Reserve/Non-Football Injury list will sideline him for at least the first four weeks of the season. According to Shanahan, the immediate plan when it comes to Pearsall's physical recovery will involve a week of "not working up a sweat" before he can begin the rehab process. When it comes to the mental and emotional aspect of the recovery process, the team is letting Pearsall be as involved as he wants to be as he works through the traumatic event.
"He loves being around," Shanahan said. "It's all up to him with that stuff, but everyone is trying to give him space in that way and let him work through this process because the physical thing is one thing, but it's a pretty big mental toll on someone too."
As the head coach continued to reflect on the entirety of the incident and early progress Pearsall had made he shared an anecdote from the night of the shooting. Not long after incident and being hospitalized, the rookie wideout was able to FaceTime Shanahan to inform him he was doing fine and later, ease the minds of his teammates at their annual pre-kickoff celebration.
"No one knew the exact story, so I was able to reassure everybody as soon as they got there that he was totally fine and it was a miracle," Shanahan said. "I think where he got shot is like two inches below his tattoo with praying hands. The whole story is kind of amazing... You can't call a whole team, but to tell everyone right when they got there, it was really cool. Then, about two hours later, Ricky got on and talked to everybody."
