A safety for the San Francisco 49ers who was supposed to step in free-agent Talanoa Hufanga, Malik Mustapha suffered a ruptured ACL during the team’s regular-season finale. Having just leaked to the press, the injury threatens to complicate Mustapha’s chances of participating at least at the beginning of the 2025 season. The news was broken officially by Adam Schefter in an NFL insider capacity, which launched a barrage of questions and commentary across fan and analyst communities.
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The announcement left many people scratching their heads wondering as to why there was no news prior. ‘Why are they just telling us now?’ was the pondering of one user, WanDeFi_; AddamLeveille also asked whether there were any league rules on injuries. The rebuttal from 3rd String All-Pro was pretty straightforward: ‘Why do you think you’re so special?’
Some fans chose to be sarcastic. ‘I’m surprised they just didn’t wait until 3 hours before kickoff on week 1 to let everyone know he’ll be inactive,’ quipped Joey Cain, with Ryan Lujan simply calling it ‘understatement.’
The injury is indeed a big blow for the 49ers, who were banking on Mustapha to step in for Hufanga’s vacancy. Jerm wanted to argue that the organization could have just franchise-tagged Hufanga for one more year; most ACLs and Achilles are injuries that a player isn’t fully recovered from until the next year. ‘Now we won’t see a 100% healthy Mustapha until at least September 2026,’ he went on.
Others, like Hannibal Thompson, didn’t show any sympathy, saying that Hufanga shouldn’t be paid handsomely because of his injury history. ‘Fkkkkk noooo is all I’m saying,’ he stated.
This really led to some confusion about the timing of the news. WanDeFi_ asked, ‘He tore what?’ and was directly answered by 3rd String All-Pro: ‘His ACL.’
At least a handful of fans were venting their anger at the Niners for how they handled the injury, whereas some, like PaulGranger20. vented their feelings for the team in general. ‘Niners suck I’m not even watching this season,’ he wrote.
Conflicting as the reactions might seem, one thing is for sure — the secondary just got thinner than whatever it already was, and the fans aren’t too happy with how it was communicated. Whether this would affect the plans of the team for next season is yet to be seen, but for now, the reactions convey confusion, frustration, and sarcasm.
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And, somehow weirdly, someone thinks it’s funny. ‘We really have the weirdest news man,’ said Dequane Booker.
This story originally appeared on Celebrityinsider
