9:02am: Per Rapoport (Twitter link), Lattimore will meet with doctors today to figure out the reason for his knee soreness, with a decision on his future likely to follow. The running back isn’t believed to have suffered any structural damage to his knee last week during practice, writes Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee.
8:37am: 49ers running back Marcus Lattimore is expected to retire from the NFL due to ongoing knee issues, a source tells Adam Caplan of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Caplan’s source doesn’t appear to be Lattimore’s agent, Michael Perrett, who tells Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link) that “no decision has been made” yet on his client’s future, but confirms that the running back is weighing his options.
Lattimore, who turned 23 last week, has yet to make his NFL debut, having been sidelined by injuries since being selected in the fourth round of the 2013 draft by the Niners. This season, he was placed on the reserve/non-football injury list, and only began practicing this past week. If Lattimore continues his comeback attempt, the team would have until November 19 to activate him or place him on season-ending injured reserve.
Matt Maiocco of CSNBayArea.com had written yesterday that Lattimore would be “taking some time” to contemplate his future and decide whether to continue trying to get on the field. Lattimore practiced on Wednesday and Thursday last week, two years after suffering his second significant knee injury during his final year at South Carolina. However, he experienced some soreness and was held out of Friday’s session, prompting a source to tell Maiocco that the running back’s future was “up in the air.”
Whether Lattimore finalizes his decision to retire or takes one more shot at getting back on the field, we can probably expect some sort of official announcement in the near future.