Did the 49ers Trade Too Much to Acquire Christian McCaffrey?
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Trading for Christian McCaffrey was quite the gamble from the 49ers.
What makes it such a gamble is what they surrendered in a trade for him. The 49ers sent their second, third and fourth round picks in 2023 and fifth-round pick in 2024 to bring the former All Pro over to Santa Clara.
The idea with gaining McCaffrey is that he can raise the ceiling of the entire offense. He'll help the running game, draw attention from Deebo Samuel, and give Jimmy Garoppolo a checkdown outlet.
However, as good as McCaffrey has been this season, he is still far off from his 2019 All Pro form. Not to mention that injuries have plagued him in the last three years. He is an injury prone player playing for a team that gets players injured like no other. Considering all the draft capital the 49ers sent the Panthers for him, this is definitely a questionable move.
So did the 49ers trade too much to acquire McCaffrey?
They definitely did. Trading that much for McCaffrey screams of a team in desperation and I don't blame the 49ers at all. I get the decision and do not dislike it. Sometimes you have to overspend to revitalize the season. And with the Rams giving competitive offers, the 49ers had to step their game up. It happens.
Right now, the offense of the 49ers has not demonstrated any success outside of their game against the Panthers. With the 49ers offense, they need a player(s) with explosive ability to rip off consistent huge gains. Raheem Mostert was that player in 2019 and Samuel in 2021. But defenses are selling out to stop Samuel, and there isn't anyone rostered on the 49ers that can become that. So I get why they needed that new element to uplift the offense. It is their "card up their sleeve" emergency play that they did last year by changing Samuel from receiver to running back.
As sweet as it would've been to retain one or more of those draft picks, the reality is that losing teams care the most about picks. The 49ers are not one and should not operate like one. Gaining a player with the All Pro capability as McCaffrey is probably not happening with any of those draft picks anyways. And while the odds are stacked against the 49ers in getting close to an All Pro and healthy McCaffrey, they just had to take a swing. It's the ultimate "boom-or-bust" trade here and the 49ers are hoping the unlikely "boom" can hit for them.
"Everything you do in this business is a gamble," said Kyle Shanahan this week. "But if you're going to gamble, I want to, first of all do it with talent and I want do it with character, and I mean football character. And I see that very strong with this guy.”
