There may not be a deeper backfield in the NFL next season than the one in San Francisco. The 49ers have a wealth of talent at running back after adding Tevin Coleman and re-signing Raheem Mostert, while already having Jerick McKinnon and Matt Breida already on the roster.
With the NFL’s roster limit on game day, forcing teams to make seven of their 53 players inactive, there may not be room for all four to play on Sundays. Don’t tell that to Kyle Shanahan, though. He’s open to the idea of keeping all four active on game days.
“I think we’re in a situation right now, just looking at our roster, that I think it could make a lot of sense this year,” Shanahan said, via NBC Sports.
That would be the ultimate running back-by-committee approach by San Francisco, having four guys capable of carrying the load on any given Sunday. Kyle Juszczyk is a fullback and doesn’t come with the same role as the other four running backs, but he’s a staple to be active every week.
That means five of the 46 game day roster spots would be occupied by tailbacks, which is significantly more than any other team typically uses. The Rams, for example, kept only two running backs active most weeks in 2018, giving players at other positions more opportunities to contribute.
Nothing is set in stone and Shanahan is only saying it makes sense to keep four running backs active, but this is certainly an interesting development brewing in San Francisco.
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