Who Will Lead the 49ers in Rushing Yards in 2022?
Since Kyle Shanahan became the 49ers head coach in 2017, they've never had a running back lead the team in rushing two years in a row. Someone new seems to emerge every season.
Who will it be this season?
Last season, the 49ers leading rusher was Elijah Mitchell, who gained 963 rushing yards in the regular season and averaged a whopping 18.8 carries per game. But that workload was too much for him, as he frequently got injured and ultimately wore down -- he averaged merely 3.1 yards per carry in the playoffs.
That's a big reason the 49ers spent their third-round pick this year on running back Ty Davis-Price. They needed more players in their running back committee.
Plus, Mitchell was a much better fit for the Jimmy Garoppolo offense than the Trey Lance offense. Mitchell averaged 5.0 yards per carry when the quarterback was under center last season, which was most of the time, because the quarterback was Garoppolo. The 49ers' best running play was Garoppolo pitching the ball left or right to Mitchell, who would run outside the tackles.
Now Lance is the quarterback, which means most of the run plays will come from the shotgun, because he's a rushing threat as well, and the shotgun leverages the threat of a running quarterback much more than undercenter formations do. This transition does not bode well for Mitchel, because he averaged just 3.6 yards per carry from shotgun formations last season.
Enter Ty Davis-Price and Trey Sermon, two running backs who worked primarily out of the shotgun in college. It's clear the 49ers have been planning for this transition since last year when they drafted Lance. But we don't know how good Davis-Price and Sermon will be. Sermon mostly did nothing last year, and Davis-Price is a rookie.
If the 49ers are looking for a dependable running back who thrives from shotgun formations, their best option might be Jeff Wilson Jr.
Wilson Jr. injured his knee during OTAs last year and returned midseason when he wasn't yet 100-percent healthy. Now he's healthy, and the last time he was healthy (2020), he led the 49ers in rushing yards, rushing attempts and rushing touchdowns. Plus, he averaged 5.1 yards per carry from shotgun formations, which means he's a perfect fit with Lance.
Look for Wilson Jr. to lead the 49ers in rushing yards in 2022.
