Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
Raheem Mostert is not interested in your fantasy team.
This has not been an easy season for anyone on the 49ers, but Mostert especially. He’s been dealing with a knee injury and sprained ankle for the vast majority of the year. The ankle not healed and was a problem entering Sunday’s game, keeping him out of Wednesday’s practice and limiting him in Thursday’s.
The result of those injuries was him missing Weeks 3 and 4, before returning and suffering a high-ankle sprain that sent him to injured reserve from Weeks 7 through 11. On Sunday, after he’d admitted that his ankle was not fully healed and would likely not be this season, Mostert re-aggravated it midway through the third quarter, and it seems probable he will be done for the season.
It came in a 41-33 loss to the Dallas Cowboys which officially extinguished the 49ers’ playoff hopes. On Monday morning, Mostert took to Twitter to air his grievances with critics and fantasy players who complained about his injury and his 68 rushing yards (on 14 carries, for a 4.85 yards-per-carry average).
If you read the 49ers Notebook this Friday, you would know that Jeff Wilson Jr. was the smarter play, given Mostert’s bad ankle and his goal-line usage.
Mostert’s main gripe seemed to be with people criticizing him for his injuries, which are obviously most frustrating to Mostert who, you know, is actually dealing with them and the arduous rehab process.
Here are the tweets, in order:
People really think they’re ‘big and bad’ with these Twitter fingers.
— Raheem Mostert (@RMos_8Ball) December 21, 2020
Do you really think players get hurt on purpose?!! Like we want to spend MONTHS in rehab NOT doing what we love?
— Raheem Mostert (@RMos_8Ball) December 21, 2020
The disrespect is out of control.
— Raheem Mostert (@RMos_8Ball) December 21, 2020
And for the millionth time, PLAYERS DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR FANTASY FOOTBALL TEAM. This is our real life.
— Raheem Mostert (@RMos_8Ball) December 21, 2020
Bottom line is — BE RESPECTFUL TO EVERYONE. Always. Disrespect gets you NOWHERE.
— Raheem Mostert (@RMos_8Ball) December 21, 2020
Mostert has talked at length this season about the mental and emotional toll of playing away from his family, and how he and his wife, Devon, cried on each other before the season at the thought of being separated for five-plus months.
She has been alone with their two-year-old son, Gunner, and pregnant for most of this year before she gave birth to their second son, Neeko. The timing, with Mostert injured and the 49ers staying on the East Coast after a game against the Jets, allowed him to go home to Cleveland to be there. He said he wasn’t sure if his wife would be comfortable with him returning, and only did so after what he said were long discussions.
For Mostert, this is a season in which he’s done everything possible to return and compete. It’s just gone wrong at every turn for him, like it has for the 49ers, and he’s got at least a couple more weeks before he can go home to his family, which you can be sure he wishes was right now. San Francisco is out of the playoffs, and the combination of that and fans complaining about an injury that frustrates him the most, is an aggravating cocktail.