Christian McCaffrey Sounds Off on 49ers Rookie Kaelon Black

Not a lot of time has been spent between the rookies and the veterans on the San Francisco 49ers.

OTAs are where they will get their first real significant exposure to one another. Yet that hasn’t prevented Christian McCaffrey from taking note of rookie Kaelon Black.

The two have already been in some meetings together. And so far, McCaffrey is happy with what he’s seeing from the rookie out of Indiana.

McCaffrey sounds off

Indiana's Kaelon Black answers questions at Media Day during the College Football Playoff on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. | Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

“He’s been great. He’s been everything you would want in a rookie,” McCaffrey said after Day 2 of OTAs. “Super attentive in meetings, does everything right, has a bunch of talent, and complements our room really well.”

Black has a prime opportunity to be McCaffrey’s primary backup. His draft status would suggest that, but he’ll need to outperform Jordan James.

Given how he’s doing well to stand out to McCaffrey, he’s got a good shot at winning it. But what has really been viewed positively by McCaffrey with Black is how inquisitive he is.

“He’s somebody that’s so eager to learn,” said McCaffrey. “We’ve had a couple of conversations outside of practice on different things that I’m seeing.

“What I see in him already in a few weeks is that he can pick things up so quickly. It doesn’t take him a while. Once he does something, or once you tell him something, he knows how to correct it. He knows how to fix it.”

Black is taking the right approach so far. Learning the 49ers’ system is not easy. This is part of why numerous rookies haven’t found a role. It’s usually injuries that put them there.

If he can get it down as quickly as possible, he will be playable. He’ll also need to showcase adequate pass-catching ability. That will be the final leg for him to find playing time.

Kyle Shanahan isn’t fond of playing two drastically different-style running backs. Black wasn’t utilized much in the passing game at Indiana, but he was before at James Madison University.

He’s capable of it. The 49ers just need to wake up those skills since they've been dormant. Those skills will also need to be improved upon, but Kyle Juszczyk thinks he looks solid already.

“People have kind of mentioned that he didn’t catch a lot of passes at Indiana, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that based on what you’ve seen in the practice field,” said Juszczyk on The Rich Eisen Show. “He looks very natural running his routes, very natural hands. I think he’s going to fit in just perfectly.”

The road to becoming a key rotational player in the 49ers’ offense has begun for Black. The more he flashes in the pass game and embeds himself in the playbook, the better.

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