SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) -Frank Gore thought he had a concussion. The San Francisco 49ers say their star running back is just confused.
Gore, the NFL’s sixth-leading rusher with 728 yards and four touchdowns, missed his second straight practice Thursday. Although he still expects to play against the St. Louis Rams this weekend, he hasn’t recovered from a painfully strained neck in Monday night’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
Gore had a headache for the next two days, and the 49ers’ best offensive player wondered aloud whether he had incurred a concussion, a possibly major setback for an offense already struggling to score.
“I just thought it,” said Gore, who had a concussion two years ago in a game against Detroit. “My neck was hurting, and I just thought I had (a concussion).”
Coach Mike Singletary and the San Francisco medical staff disagreed with Gore’s homegrown diagnosis, and Gore acknowledged late Thursday that the team doctors probably were correct. He plans to practice Friday.
does not know what a concussion is,” Singletary said with a chuckle. “He has no idea. I don’t even know what a concussion is. … Frank has a neck strain, and it may feel like a concussion, but I talked to (49ers athletic trainer Jeff Ferguson), and he does not have a concussion. He’s OK. He’ll be good to go.”
Gore apparently got hurt while throwing a block on Arizona’s Chike Okeafor during the final drive in the 29-24 defeat. He stayed in the game and nearly scored on the game’s penultimate play, but Okeafor barely knocked Gore off-balance before he was able to crawl into the end zone.
Gore’s stumble on that key play seemed unusual, and he confirmed he didn’t feel well during the drive, which ended on the next play when running back Michael Robinson got stuffed near the goal line as time ran out. Gore was lined up wide as a decoy.
“I think it was just something that probably wasn’t meant (to be),” Gore said. “To see me just fall down – usually, any other play, I would have made that play. (For) me to just get rubbed like that, and I stumbled, it was tough on me.”
Gore is San Francisco’s leading receiver with 33 catches for 317 yards and one touchdown. DeShaun Foster, Gore’s backup, has just 26 yards on 11 carries this season.
Gore’s counterpart, St. Louis running back Steven Jackson, is unlikely to play Sunday because of his lingering thigh injury.
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