NEWYou can now listen to Pakinomist articles!
Perhaps the only person around the San Francisco 49ers who isn’t worried about the heavy workload All-Pro Christian McCaffrey handled last season is McCaffrey himself.
While Kyle Shanahan and the rest of the coaching staff have expressed a need to reduce McCaffrey’s usage after his 450-touch campaign in the regular season and playoffs in 2025, McCaffrey does not see a need for load management.
“I’ve been dealing with those questions for nine years, it feels like,” McCaffrey said. “I think the workload in our sport is really monitored in practice, not in games. We play 17 regular season games a year and everybody’s livelihood is on the line. I would say on Sunday you have to do whatever it takes to win and that’s not a coach’s job. You don’t tell a 3-point shooter you’re only going to get six 3s off my body today. In the best position I can to go out there and play, I think that everything else can be monitored during the week … But when it comes to game days, I like to think, prepare to play every single snap.
McCaffrey nearly did it last season when he led all running backs by playing in 83% of offensive snaps for the 49ers. McCaffrey almost never calls for a timeout, and running backs coach Bobby Turner kept calling his number.
“It’s challenging,” Turner said. “But I personally should have done a better job of managing it last year because I’m keeping track of every play and knowing when he’s on, when he’s not. But this year, the coaching staff, they’re all going to be involved in making sure that doesn’t happen.”
McCaffrey had 272 rushing attempts in 2023, leading the league in rushing yards, but played in just four games in 2024 before rebounding with an NFL-leading 413 touches from scrimmage and a Pro Bowl appearance in ’25. (Photo: Kara Durrette/Getty Images)
After being limited to four games due to injuries in 2024, McCaffrey was an ironman last season. He played 1,010 offensive snaps in the regular season and playoffs — just the ninth running back in the last 20 seasons to top the 1,000 mark — and became the second player in the last decade with at least 450 combined carries and catches.
With several other offensive stars, from quarterback Brock Purdy to tight end George Kittle to receiver Ricky Pearsall, sidelined for long stretches with injuries, the Niners could not afford to take McCaffrey off the field as he was both the team’s best runner and often one of its more reliable pass catchers.
“We went into the year wanting to take care of him a little bit more,” Shanahan said. “But the way the offense was going, I think more with the receivers and the injuries we had, it was hard to get him off the field. And it was cool to have him out there because he helped our offense so much.”
McCaffrey, who turned 30 on Sunday, hasn’t responded well in the past after his toughest seasons. The previous two times he topped 400 touches — in 2019 with Carolina and 2023 with the 49ers — he was severely hampered by injuries the following season, missing 13 games each in 2020 and 2024.
That’s what the 49ers hope to avoid this year as they plan to put more faith in the young backs.
Jordan James, a 2025 fifth-round pick, got hurt in training camp and never established himself as a viable option. His only three offensive snaps in the regular season came when San Francisco kneeled out of the clock in a blowout win against Indianapolis in Week 16. His only other action came late in a 41-6 playoff loss to Seattle, when he had six carries for 28 yards and one reception.
The 49ers then used a third-round pick to take Indiana’s Kaelon Black in this year’s draft and are hoping at least one of the two can earn playing time this season.
“I’m sure they’ll get more opportunities,” Turner said. “They’re both competitors, they’ve both been drafted for a reason. They’re mentally tough people, they can be explosive… They’re definitely going to get more opportunities, which means Christian will be fresher.”
The 49ers also hope a fresher McCaffrey will make him more explosive. Despite gaining 2,126 yards from scrimmage and flirting with his second 1,000-yard rushing and receiving season, McCaffrey struggled to generate big plays with just three runs of at least 20 yards, down from nine in his last healthy season in 2023, when he won AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year.
The Niners had four big runs total on the season after averaging nearly 14 per season the previous four years.
“When you look around the league and you study good running backs and you study guys who impact the game like he does, those guys come out of the game,” offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said. “Those guys get hit sometimes and whether it’s a drive or a couple plays in a series, it helps those players. Christian knows that and we’ve got to do a better job as coaches, we’ve got to do a better job at times to have a better rotation.”
Report from the Associated Press.
