The San Francisco 49ers will get Christian McCaffrey in Week 1. That instantly means 2025 is better than 2024 since he was unavailable to start that season. Now, how do you think the 49ers should limit him?
One of the things to watch when the San Francisco 49ers begin will be McCaffrey’s usage. Now that the 49ers have Brian Robinson to spell McCaffrey, and hopefully a healthy Isaac Guerendo to serve as the third option (and don’t forget Jordan James), a perfect world would say Kyle Shanahan won’t bat an eyelash at pulling McCaffrey for a play or two. As we know, that doesn’t exist because Shanahan also tends to run McCaffrey more than many may say is ideal.
But, given that McCaffrey is healed up from that nagging Achilles injury that kept him out last year, what would you do to limit carries if you had a say? We’ve already discussed the expectations with McCaffrey, and the general idea is to get him playing through 16 or 17 games.
The 49ers have potential for a quasi-3-headed beast (where one head is large and does most of the heavy lifting) for running backs. Given all the injuries (and money they syphoned to the position) it only makes sense to (finally) cut down on snaps going to McCaffrey. McCaffrey is no doubt going to get the money downs and lion’s share of the carries, but perhaps a bit more rest isn’t out of line.
While the 49ers have Robinson as a great second option, they don’t have Deebo Samuel this year. Which could mean McCaffrey picks up the slack, or Shanahan gets Guerendo and Robinson more involved, regardless. If the latter happens, Shanahan doesn’t seem too worried about someone else coming in, though it could hurt.
“[When] Christian goes out,” Shanahan said during his segment on KNBR’s Dirty Work, “Whether it’s a run play or pass play, it’s tough. Because you know he’s such a good runner and such a good receiver. But now, when you have a really, really good back behind him, and we take Christian out and things like that, you’re not so upset on all these plays because you know you’ve got a guy coming in there who you shouldn’t miss a beat on.”
One has to wonder how comfortable Shanahan would be if it were only Guerendo behind McCaffrey, instead of Robinson.
But back to the running back group: This is all assuming everyone can stay healthy. And we’re yet to see what the splits for 2025 will be. On the positive, it’s nice to see Shanahan admit pulling McCaffrey won’t be as painful as it may have been in previous seasons.
It seems like it might finally be the season where it’s not McCaffrey and a running back to give him an occasional break.’ Hopefully, we see all three with significant time and not just after the 49ers have put a game out of reach.
So, what split would you give this beast? In 2023, McCaffrey’s last full season, he averaged around 81 percent of the snaps. While that’s on the high end, in 2024, Los Angeles Rams’ Kyren Williams was on the field for 87.5 percent of the snaps, so that it could be worse. In 2022, McCaffrey had 72.4 percent of team snaps. This is an attempt to average his numbers with the 49ers only (this was when he was traded from the Carolina Panthers). If you factor in his time with the Panthers, that number is slightly higher.
If I’m in charge, I’m trying to get McCaffrey back to his 2022 snap percentage. Somewhere mid-60s. Nowhere near the 80s unless necessary. 65 percent of snaps go to McCaffrey, 25 percent go to Robinson, and ten percent can be given as something for Guerendo and possibly Jordan James to fight over.
Shanahan acknowledged on the same radio segment that Robinson does bring a different skill set than McCaffrey. KP has also pointed out that Robinson’s strength is around the tackles. Guerendo is just fast. With those behind McCaffrey having different traits, I imagine some packages are already planned so McCaffrey isn’t run ragged by Week 6. Their split seems small, but when they hit the field, they can basically explode without a hint of exhaustion.
How would you split this up? What do you think keeps McCaffrey fresh and, most importantly, healthy?
About the Author: Insidethe49
