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49ers RB Christian McCaffrey Ranked No. 3 in NFL's Top 100 List

What an honor.

Grant Cohn

Jul 25, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey answers questions at a press conference following Day 3 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 25, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey answers questions at a press conference following Day 3 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports / D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
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What a couple of years it has been for Christian McCaffrey.

Not long ago, he was fighting through injuries on the Carolina Panthers in relative obscurity. He wasn't considered the best running back in the NFL or one of the best players in the league regardless of position. That's why the 49ers were able to trade for him without sending Carolina a first-round pick.

And since McCaffrey has joined the 49ers, he has gone to a Super Bowl, won the Offensive Player of the Year Award and been named the league's third-best player in the NFL's Top 100 list -- one spot ahead of Patrick Mahomes. What an honor.

Of course, no one actually considers McCaffrey a better player than Mahomes. Mahomes is by far the best player in the NFL. He might be the best quarterback of all time. And McCaffrey is not the best running back ever. Not even close.

McCaffrey is very good, but when he had an opportunity to cement his legacy in as an all-time great and put the 49ers on his back in the Super Bowl, the biggest game of his life, he rushed for 3.5 yards per carry and fumbled and the 49ers lost to Mahomes and the Chiefs yet again.

I'm guessing the players voted before the Super Bowl and these rankings reflect regular-season performance much more than postseason performance. Otherwise, it makes no sense to rank Mahomes any lower than no. 1.

The only players who ranked ahead of McCaffrey were Lamar Jackson (no. 2) and Tyreek Hill (no. 1).

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Grant Cohn

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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