Despite historically bad injury luck that has seen 11 players spend time on injured reserve and another 16 on this week’s injury report, the San Francisco 49ers are somehow only a half game out of the top spot in the NFC West. If they beat the Rams on Sunday and if they get even a little healthier in the second half, the Niners could somewhat miraculously be in contention for a division title and maybe even play spoiler in the playoffs.

But those are two enormously large ifs.

Case in point: the latest discourse from 49ers insiders Tim Kawakami and Matt Barrows on San Francisco’s star wideout, Brandon Aiyuk. Even though Aiyuk has been eligible to come off the physically unable to perform list for multiple weeks, he remains in no man’s land. He hasn’t played a single snap — practice or otherwise — this season as he recovers from ACL and MCL tears he suffered a full year ago, and now there’s doubt amongst those covering the team most closely about whether he’ll step on the field at all.

“I think it’s a close call right now whether he plays this season or not,” Kawakami said on Friday’s episode of “The TK Show” podcast. “… At some point, you’re running out of weeks.”

Even if the 49ers do take Aiyuk off the PUP list, he’d likely still need a couple of weeks to ramp up before taking the field. And with the Niners already past the midpoint of the season, the window for that possible return is seriously shrinking.

“Once you get to December you could just say, ‘You know what, maybe this isn’t going to work.’ I’m not saying that’s what’s happening, I’m saying, man, that’s a live possibility,” Kawakami said, later calling it “almost like 50/50” odds of Aiyuk actually playing this year.

Barrows offered up a possible scenario where Aiyuk does return to practice but never plays in an actual game.

“It could be a situation where they’ve opened his window, he’s able to practice, he’s able to get a running start on the offseason, but not risk himself in a game,” he said. “That may be what we’re heading for.”

Head coach Kyle Shanahan gave a somewhat lukewarm update on Aiyuk to reporters on Tuesday that actually lines up pretty well with the scenario Barrows suggested on the podcast.

“I’m pretty confident that he is going to [play] eventually,” Shanahan said. “At least open up his practice window. We talk about it being week to week right now, so still waiting until he is ready.”

Whatever happens, the contentious contract extension San Francisco signed him to in 2024 looks like an unmitigated disaster. Aiyuk has played just seven games in the past 15 months after signing a four-year, $120 million deal with $76 million in guarantees, and there’s certainly no guarantee he’ll look like his former self when he does return from two major knee injuries.