The season began with the 49ers playing games about the availability of running back Christian McCaffrey. Now that he’s inching toward his 2024 debut, the games continue.

Asked by reporters when a decision will be made regarding whether McCaffrey will play on Sunday at Tampa Bay, coach Kyle Shanahan said this: “Like publicly? Kickoff.”

Actually, it’ll be 90 minutes before kickoff — unless he’ll be active and not play.

Shanahan had more to say when asked what he needs to see before he knows whether McCaffrey will play.

“That he’s just Christian McCaffrey and he’s not hurting,” Shanahan said. “But as long as everything goes well, it has in the rehab. So, just as long as he doesn’t get sore and have setbacks each day with practice, usually if you get that in practice, that means it’s going to be worse in the game. So hopefully he can string together three days in a row and not have any of those.”

If McCaffrey plays, his workload is to be determined.

“It definitely could [be a normal workload], but it also definitely might not,” Shanahan said.

Shanahan also was asked whether the 2024 injury was related to McCaffrey’s heavy workload through 20 games in 2023.

“I don’t believe that,” Shanahan said. “I don’t think he believes that. I think things happen to a body. I think they happen in [the] offseason, but I don’t think that really has to do with numbers. When a guy is healthy and good, they’re usually good. But we’ve got to see where his conditioning is at, how he is. I know he is conditioned as well as he can be, but how his football conditioning is and stuff. But usually, I don’t chalk up to numbers one year to affect the injury the next year.”

Regardless of how it happened, it has kept McCaffrey from playing in any of the team’s eight games to date in 2024. Whether he can play is one thing. Whether he can play well enough to turn around a season that can still skew one way or the other.