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The 49ers Sign Free Agent RB Patrick Taylor

Taylor might not even make the 49ers 53-man roster -- he'll compete for a spot. Right now, he's a camp body who also plays special teams.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 11, 2023; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Green Bay Packers running back Patrick Taylor (27)
Dec 11, 2023; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Green Bay Packers running back Patrick Taylor (27) | Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

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Green Bay Packers

Move over Christian McCaffrey.

The 49ers just signed Green Bay Packers free agent running back Patrick Taylor to a one-year deal, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter. Which means the 49ers now have a full-blown running back controversy.

Just kidding.

Taylor might not even make the 49ers 53-man roster -- he'll compete for a spot. Right now, he's a camp body who also plays special teams. Which means there's nothing particularly special about him.

But he still might prove to be one of the 49ers' top three running backs. Obviously, McCaffrey is the starter, because he's elite. After him, it gets murky. Jordan Mason averages more than 5 yards per carry for his career, but head coach Kyle Shanahan still doesn't seem to trust him enough to play him in tight games.

And then there's Elijah Mitchell, whom Shanahan loves. But Mitchell was extremely ineffective last season. He averaged 3.7 yards per carry and 2.3 yards per catch. Injuries have taken away the qualities that made him an effective starting running back when he was a rookie in 2021. Now he's not even a quality backup.

It seems the 49ers are looking for a backup running back they trust who can take some of the load off McCaffrey. Taylor may or may not be that trustworthy backup, but he does reveal what the 49ers are searching for -- a backup running back who can block and catch passes and replicate some of what McCaffrey does, considering the entire offense revolves around him and his unique skill set.

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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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