Fred Warner’s recovery is unlikely to be as grueling as the gruesome nature of the injury would suggest.

Players turned away Sunday with their hands on their helmets after the San Francisco 49ers’ All-Pro linebacker suffered a dislocated and broken ankle in the first quarter of a 30-19 loss to the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay players quickly beckoned to the 49ers’ sideline for medical assistance in a scene that was reminiscent of the frantic response when Washington QB Joe Theismann had a compound leg fracture in 1985 that ended his career.

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But Warner’s injury isn’t career-threatening. In fact, it might not even be season-ending if the 49ers can reach the playoffs.

General manager John Lynch didn’t rule out the possibility of Warner possibly playing in January after he had surgery Tuesday. Lynch said he would continue to discuss Warner’s timeline with the team’s medical staff on Thursday, but he indicated his initial conversations on the subject provided at least a glimmer of hope.

“Let’s get there and let’s see,” Lynch said on KNBR. “Fred will never rule (it) out. You give him a timeline – he’ll want to break it and beat it. But I’ll talk to (the doctors) more and we’ll see if it’s out there – if that’s a possibility. We’ve just got to go put in the work so that perhaps it is.”

Dr. Kenneth Jung, a foot and ankle surgeon who is a consultant to the Los Angeles Rams, didn’t dismiss the idea that Warner could return this season, but termed it “doubtful.” Jung noted the timeline for such an injury is three to six months, but the best-case scenario requires, among other factors, that damage is limited to bones and ligaments.

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He said the force in a fracture-dislocation can often result in cartilage damage, which can extend the timeline well beyond three months. Cartilage, which is smooth material that covers the end of the bones within the ankle joints, takes longer to heal because it lacks a blood supply. Jung said cartilage damage might not have been detected until Warner’s surgery.

“Sometimes with these dislocations the bones clearly come out of joint and so you can have injuries to cartilage that may not get picked up on an X-ray,” said Jung, who works at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics in Los Angeles. “Oftentimes you’ll assess it with an MRI or with arthroscopy at the time of surgery.”

Whenever Warner returns, Jung said there is a “very good” chance Warner will come back as the same player he was before his injury. He doesn’t expect that his return will be in mid-January, about three months removed from surgery, but he’s not ruling it out.

“It’s kind of hard to predict unless they give a report on what they actually end up finding in surgery,” Jung said. “But, in general, you would expect bone to take six to eight weeks to heal, and ligaments probably around the same amount of time. And that just would get him to the point where he’s able to resume light training and progressing back.”

This article originally published at Could 49ers’ Fred Warner return this season? John Lynch, surgeon don’t dismiss it.