One Adjustment That Kyle Shanahan Must Make on the 49ers Going Forward

The 49ers completely eviscerated the Steelers in Week 1.

It was a resounding victory that has very little to nitpick over. The offense was in complete control, while the defense was stifling every drive. No other team in the league had a more dominating win in Week 1 than the 49ers.

However, there was one adjustment that Kyle Shanahan must make going forward. It is the workload of star running back Christian McCaffrey in the fourth quarter of a blowout win. McCaffrey stayed in the game handling the full duties in the offense in the fourth quarter as if it were a close game. He received five carries and one target. There was absolutely no need at all for him to still be getting a full workload. At the very least, Shanahan should've limited his carries.

Five carries and one route run isn't too much, but it's more of the fact of why it was deemed necessary? All it takes is one play for McCaffrey to come up gimpy. The risk versus reward is NOT worth it. The running back position is a great group on the 49ers. Elijah Mitchell was a former starter for them. I'd like to think he is more than capable of closing out a game by taking half of the carries away from McCaffrey in a three score game. Even throwing in Jordan Mason for a few plays would've been solid.

Mitchell could've taken three of those five carries from McCaffrey, if not all. There's a reason the 49ers do not practice McCaffrey much during the week. It's so that they don't burn him out and reduce injury risk. But in a blowout game in the fourth quarter, Shanahan ran him five times. For what?

The fact that McCaffrey was still out there likely means Shanahan was paranoid of coughing up the lead. But for crying out loud, if taking out McCaffrey means the 49ers lose the lead, then they are not as talented of a team as they are believed to be. They should be more than capable of closing out a game with McCaffrey taking less.

"You pull guys when you think the game's over and you do that off of experience and we didn’t think the game was over when it's at that point," Shanahan explained. "Now, sometime in that drive because it took so long, we debated whether to take them out before that drive or not. We'd been in that situation before, we decided not to."

I'm not advocating to pull a handful of starters, but for the ones who are already being limited throughout the week, those are the players you have to consider pulling or limiting. It will be inexcusable if Shanahan gets McCaffrey hurt the next time the 49ers are winning by three scores in a fourth quarter.

Use the depth behind him and protect your best offensive player.