Santa Clara – The 49ers returned to practice today at the team facility to prepare for their upcoming Monday Night showdown with the New York Jets. While today’s focus wasn’t on facing their former Defensive Coordinator, now head coach of the Jets, the shooting of rookie Ricky Pearsall this past weekend was on everyone’s minds.
After practice, several players expressed their concern for Pearsall and his recovery. His recent return to the facility and a FaceTime call with teammates have lifted everyone’s spirits, knowing that he is doing well.
49ers General Manager John Lynch gives a team statement on rookie Ricky Pearsall shooting and takes a few questions from the media:
“By the grace of God, Ricky Pearsall is with the team and doing really well. We just wanted to address the situation from a team perspective—we all feel incredibly blessed. I was at the hospital, and I can’t tell you how many people told me it was nothing short of miraculous that he came out of this as well as he did.
On behalf of Ricky and his family, I spoke with Ricky this morning, and he just wants to express, along with the team, our deep gratitude to so many people. First and foremost, the San Francisco Police Department. Their response was incredible, and they were outstanding at the hospital as well.
I’m really proud of our team for how they’ve responded. I want to mention that during all of this, we had a team party scheduled. When I got to the hospital and spoke with Ricky, one of the first things he said was, ‘Mr. Lynch, what’s going on? I’d really like everyone to go to that party. And I’d also like to talk to some of my teammates.’ I told him to focus on his recovery, but it was a special moment when we were able to connect him to the party via FaceTime. That show of love and respect was a real highlight for our team.
We’ve placed Ricky on the Non-Football Injury (NFI) list. It’s similar to the PUP list, but since this happened away from the field, we had to act quickly. While I wish we had more time to make this decision, our primary concern is Ricky’s well-being—physically, emotionally, and mentally. We ultimately decided that the best course for Ricky is to give him some time to recover.
When we drafted Ricky, it was for the long term, and he’s going to be a fantastic player here. He’s eager to get back, and while he was disappointed, he understood why we put him on that list and what it entails. It’s a minimum of four weeks, but there’s also an active police investigation, so I can’t get into all the details at this time.
Finally, I just want to say that we’re incredibly proud to be part of this community. We live in a special place, and this situation should make us all take a step back and realize that we can all be better to each other. Hopefully, this will inspire us to do just that. Ricky is in good spirits, and we’re going to put our support and love behind him as we work through this.
As we move into game week, this incident really makes you stop and reflect on how precious life is. Ricky is a very fortunate young man.
Can you address how Ricky is physically right now? It’s probably maybe a premature question, but are you confident that he can make a contribution and get on the field this season?
“He’s doing remarkably well. It’s kind of unchartered territory. It’s not every day you deal with something like this. If you just were looking at it physically. I relied on our medical experts. They felt too much to ask to come back within the next four weeks. So we made that decision to at least give him that time. He’s doing remarkably better today than he was yesterday. Really, miraculous. Didn’t touch organs, feels like all the nerve stuff is good. It’s pretty remarkable.”
Did the bullet strike a rib? What kind of damage did it do?
“No, it didn’t. It was through and through is kind of how they described it. Like I said, multiple people down there said this is about as good an outcome as you could have in this situation.”
Obviously, a tragic situation, but just from afar, have you been able to kind of look at what kind of impact the whole thing has had on the team?
“Sobering. It was very sobering. You never love to get any call with regards to your players where they’re in danger or peril. The earliest calls that I received were extremely scary, ‘hey, we believe Ricky’s been shot in the chest and that outcome’s not usually a good one.’ So that was a tough, tough Saturday. It was a tough ride down to San Francisco General. So grateful that everything worked out the way it did.”
Rookie WR Ricky Pearsall was shot in the chest Saturday afternoon during an attempted robbery. Pearsall had just left a community event and was walking alone in the Union Square shopping area. A 17-year suspect was injured and taken into custody for the shooting.
Pearsall was released from the hospital after being reported that he was in stable condition. The San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced today that the 17-year-old now in custody will be charged with attempted murder.
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