Just 44 days after he was shot in the chest, 49ers rookie receiver Ricky Pearsall suited up and returned to the 49ers practice field Monday, earning the teammate praise that he’s “the swaggiest white boy I’ve ever seen.”
Your San Francisco 49ers have the Kansas City Chiefs coming to town this Sunday for a Super Bowl rematch. So you would think all of the conversation around this game will be non-football talk about whether Taylor Swift will show up to root on her boyfriend Travis Kelce.
But Ricky Pearsall, the rookie 49ers receiver who was shot in Union Square on August 31, has other ideas.
The Bay Area News Group reports that Pearsall suited up and practiced with the 49ers today, just 44 days after he was shot in the chest. That doesn’t necessarily mean Pearsall will play Sunday against the Chiefs, but it’s certainly still a milestone worth celebrating for Pearsall.
And Pearsall has certainly earned the admiration of his teammates. “Coldest white boy I’ve ever seen,” his fellow rookie receiver Jacob Cowing told reporters Monday. “I ain’t gonna lie, swaggiest white boy I’ve ever seen. Definitely has that ‘it’ factor about him, like I said before, just his swag, his style, his style of play with football, even outside of football, just a great dude.”
Pearsall himself was not made available to reporters.
Though as NBC Sports Bay Area explains, while Pearsall practiced today, it does not seem likely he will play against the Chiefs Sunday. But the 49ers do have three weeks to activate him to the 53-man roster. If they do not activate him by Monday, November 4, Pearsall will be out for the season.
“I would think it’d be a longer ramp-up period, but health-wise and everything, he is totally good to go,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan told NBC Sports Bay Area last week. “But I really won’t decide that stuff until we start watching him practice.
The bullet Pearsall was shot with, thankfully, did not hit any major organs, helping his miraculous recovery. Since the shooting, we’ve learned that the gun with which Pearsall was shot was legally purchased in Arizona, but then stolen. Criminal proceedings against the 17-year-old minor who allegedly shot Pearsall are still ongoing.
