Fred Warner eyeing return from serious ankle fracture during 49ers’ playoff run

SANTA CLARA — Linebacker Fred Warner’s recovery is going so well that he acknowledged he’s aiming for a deep playoff comeback.

“I’ve got a chance, man. That’s the plan,” Warner said on NBC’s pregame show before the 49ers’ Sunday night showdown with the Chicago Bears. “We’re going to take this thing one day at a time. There’s a whole lot of different steps. T’s have to be crossed, I’s have to be dotted in order to get there, but we’re on the right track.”

Reflecting back to when he sustained a dislocation and fracture near his right ankle in that Oct. 12 loss at Tampa Bay, Warner said: “I’m just grateful to be back on my two feet. I’d be lying if I said when I was on that training table in Tampa Bay, I was thinking about how fast I can get back for the playoffs.

“I was just thinking about, ‘Can I play football again?’ It was one of those injuries,” added Warner, who missed only one game over the previous seven seasons as a four-time All-Pro and Pro Bowler.

Warner has spoken informally with reporters over the past couple of months and talked on podcasts, but this pregame piece on NBC was his first interview with mainstream media since his injury.

Warner made sure to praise how well the 49ers’ defense has soldiered on without him.

“I’ve got to show love to my guy Robert Saleh,” he said, shouting out the 49ers’ defensive coordinator who is again a head coaching candidate after returning to the Niners’ staff last offseason. “He’s only gotten better since he’s come back here (after a 2017-20 stint). He’s given our team a chance to keep competing.”

Saleh’s defense, however, let a pair of first-half leads evaporate Sunday night on long touchdown passes by Caleb Williams covering 35 and 36 yards.

It’s conceivable the 49ers and the Bears could meet again in the postseason, perhaps with Warner in uniform.

On Friday, 49ers general manager John Lynch suggested that Warner’s hard work indeed could pay off with a postseason comeback.

“I’ve said this consistently: It would be well ahead of the original timeline that we were given,” Lynch told KNBR 680-AM. “But Fred has the ability to move the doctors, because they’re going to put objective measurements out there that, ‘If you can reach these, you can get there.’ And Fred has continually done that. It’s made a lot of people kind of re-examine, ‘OK, would this be possible?’ I think that’s a great thing.”

When Warner cruised into the locker room three hours before kickoff Sunday, he teased reporters by saying: “Time to suit it up, huh?”