There’s going to be some re-working of San Francisco’s offense. Christian McCaffrey is a better back than anybody they’ve had, but he’s also a dramatically different style of runner.
The backs who have been very good for San Francisco recently have been or the downhill, one-cut variety, with Elijah Mitchell and Raheem Mostert leading the way. When Alfred Morris was ripping it up for Kyle Shanahan in Washington, he was that kind of back. But those guys don’t bring much to the table in the passing game. Mitchell caught only 19 passes all of last year.
With McCaffrey, he’s less of a physical tackler breaker. With him, his pass-catching versatility is the strongest part of his game, creating mismatches out of the backfield. He’s averaged over 40 receiving yards game every season of his career, while no San Francisco back has averaged 20 receiving yards in the last four years.
The 49ers will definitely want to tweak their offense to incorporate McCaffrey as a receiving threat. That will take some time, but I expect that’s where they’ll be headed. While Shanahan hasn’t used his running backs much as pass catchers recently, he’s done it previously. In his final two seasons in Atlanta, Devonta Freeman caught 73 and 54 passes.
Mostly, McCaffrey is just a lot better than anybody Shanahan has had a running back recently. Especially when simply looking at stats and using PPR scoring. McCaffrey in each of the last five years has put up better per-game numbers than any running back Shanahan has had in San Francisco.
Note: in the chart below, so back are tagged with a RBBC marks. McCaffrey in 2017, for example, wasn’t a featured back but instead was sharing time with Jonathan Stewart.
| McCAFFREY AND 49ERS BACKS (last 5 years) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | St | Att | Run | No | Rec | Tot | TD | PPR |
| 2020 | Christian McCaffrey | 3 | 19.7 | 75.0 | 5.7 | 49.7 | 124.7 | 2.00 | 30.1 |
| 2019 | Christian McCaffrey | 16 | 17.9 | 86.7 | 7.3 | 62.8 | 149.5 | 1.21 | 29.5 |
| 2018 | Christian McCaffrey | 16 | 13.7 | 68.6 | 6.7 | 54.2 | 122.8 | .85 | 24.1 |
| 2022 | Christian McCaffrey | 6 | 14.2 | 65.5 | 5.5 | 46.2 | 111.7 | .50 | 19.7 |
| 2021 | Christian McCaffrey | 7 | 14.1 | 63.1 | 5.3 | 49.0 | 112.1 | .29 | 18.2 |
| 2019 | Raheem Mostert | 9 | 11.2 | 66.6 | 1.3 | 19.2 | 85.8 | 1.00 | 15.9 |
| 2021 | Elijah Mitchell | 10 | 18.8 | 85.9 | 1.9 | 13.7 | 99.6 | .50 | 14.9 |
| 2017 | Carlos Hyde | 16 | 15.0 | 58.6 | 3.7 | 21.9 | 80.5 | .50 | 14.7 |
| 2017 | Christian McCaffrey (C) | 16 | 7.3 | 27.2 | 5.0 | 40.7 | 67.9 | .44 | 14.4 |
| 2020 | Raheem Mostert | 8 | 13.0 | 65.1 | 2.0 | 19.5 | 84.6 | .38 | 12.7 |
| 2022 | Jeff Wilson | 5 | 14.4 | 75.6 | 1.2 | 12.4 | 88.0 | .40 | 12.4 |
| 2018 | Matt Breida | 14 | 10.9 | 58.1 | 1.9 | 18.6 | 76.8 | .36 | 11.8 |
| 2021 | Jeff Wilson | 4 | 16.8 | 65.3 | 1.5 | 7.3 | 72.5 | .50 | 11.8 |
| 2019 | Matt Breida | 9 | 12.1 | 60.2 | 1.8 | 12.2 | 72.4 | .22 | 10.4 |
| 2019 | Tevin Coleman (C) | 14 | 9.8 | 38.9 | 1.5 | 12.9 | 51.7 | .50 | 9.7 |
| 2017 | Matt Breida (C) | 16 | 6.6 | 29.1 | 1.3 | 11.3 | 40.3 | .19 | 6.5 |
| 2020 | Kyle Juszczyk (FB) | 16 | 1.1 | 4.0 | 1.2 | 12.6 | 16.6 | .38 | 5.1 |
| 2021 | Kyle Juszczyk (FB) | 17 | .5 | 1.3 | 1.8 | 17.4 | 18.7 | .12 | 4.3 |
Whether this is the move that puts the 49ers over the top, making them a Super Bowl contender, remains to be seen. They’ve got an unreal defense, but they’ve got to get everyone healthy. And they’ve got to get Jimmy Garoppolo to play at an acceptable level.
And note that Shanahan’s track record of selecting running backs has been pretty lousy. They’ve used third-round picks on Tyrion Davis-Price and Trey Sermon the last two years and haven’t gotten anything out of them. Sermon isn’t even on the team anymore. Previously, the 49ers signed Jerick McKinnon to a huge contract and traded up in the fourth round to select Joe Williams. Now they’re giving away their second-, third- and fourth-round picks in next year’s draft. They’ve fired a lot of shots at the position without getting it right.
—Ian Allan