The San Francisco 49ers don't appear to be any closer to getting linebacker Dre Greenlaw back from the Achilles injury he suffered in Super Bowl 58, with head coach Kyle Shanahan confirming on Monday that they will not open his practice window this week.

Greenlaw's continued absence means the 49ers will need to keep relying on veteran De'Vondre Campbell at WILL linebacker. Campbell was signed in free agency as a stand-in for Greenlaw and has started every game next to All-Pro MIKE linebacker Fred Warner.

Campbell has attracted a lot of criticism in his first season with the Niners, having consistently struggled in coverage, with the drop-off in open-field speed to the ball from Greenlaw glaringly obvious.

However, the last two games have seen the former first-team All-Pro for the Green Bay Packers have a more apparent positive impact.

The Week 8 win over the Dallas Cowboys saw him register four defensive stops that represented a failure for the offense, per Pro Football Focus. In last Sunday's victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Campbell again led the team in that regard with five stops.

Still, there is great anticipation around the prospective return of Greenlaw, who was seen running on a side field during last week's practice. 

But head coach Kyle Shanahan is very satisfied with what the team has gotten out of Campbell of late.

"I thought Dallas was his best game of the year and I thought this game was maybe even better," Shanahan told his Monday conference call with local reporters. 

"De’Vondre’s a very good player. He’s done it. He did it in Atlanta. He did it in Arizona. He’s done it in Green Bay. And he has done some real good things here. 

"It’s just getting used to our scheme and he gets better and better each week. These last two games have been his best. He’s getting more confidence playing in it just our style and kind of how we do things. Everything’s a little bit different and playing next to all new guys and everything. But I couldn’t be more happy with him and his journey throughout this year."

Shanahan saying he couldn't be happier with Campbell's journey will raise a lot of eyebrows given it appeared he was close to losing his job to Dee Winters early in the season.

But, in recent weeks, Campbell has undoubtedly raised his game to a point where he is far from being one of the 49ers' biggest problems. For a team enduring substantial issues on special teams and seeing its offense continue to struggle to convert drives after they get to the red zone, Campbell simply not giving the 49ers another headache is a big win.

Campbell is not Dre Greenlaw, but the 49ers were never going to ask him to live up to the standards set by their 2019 fifth-round pick. They banked on getting starter-level linebacker play from a veteran with experience of similar defenses.

Early on, it did not look as if they would get that from Campbell. Recent performances have provided much more reason for optimism but, if Greenlaw's time not the sideline stretches on for several more weeks, there is still likely to be a lot of concern around Campbell as a potential weak link on defense in a challenging pair of road games against the Packers and the Buffalo Bills that follow this Sunday's matchup with the Seattle Seahawks.

Campbell has put those initial struggles behind him and is now consistently producing positive contributions. The test for him now is to try to avoid what would be an extremely poorly timed regression.

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