Why 2024 Could be Christian McCaffrey's Final Season with the 49ers

To beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, the 49ers need to get better on third down, and McCaffrey can't help them in that department.

Grant Cohn | Mar 31, 2024

Feb 11, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) / Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports

The 49ers offense needs to evolve.

Ever since the 49ers traded for Christian McCaffrey in 2022, their offense has revolved around him. In the playoffs last season, he was both their leading rusher and their leading receiver. The 49ers have the best group of weapons in the league, and yet the offense became The Christian McCaffrey Show, and that show got cancelled in the Super Bowl.

The Chiefs exposed McCaffrey to a degree. They showed that he's not the best ball carrier in the NFL. They limited him to just 3.6 yards per carry and made him fumble once. And although McCaffrey caught eight passes for 80 yards and one touchdown, the 49ers offense still was 3 for 12 on third down, which is one of the main reasons they lost the Super Bowl.

When it comes to just running the ball, there are running backs who are better than McCaffrey, running backs such as Derrick Henry and Raheem Mostert. When it comes to catching the ball, there is no running back who's better than McCaffrey. But he still doesn't make much of an impact on third down, which is when receivers make their biggest impact.

In 2023, McCaffrey caught just 10 passes on third down, and merely five of those catches picked up the first down. Which means he was the 49ers' fifth option after Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Jauan Jennings.

To beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, the 49ers need to get better on third down, and McCaffrey can't help them in that department. So when the 49ers extend Brock Purdy's contract next season, don't be surprised if they trade McCaffrey as well and free up almost $8 million in cap space.

The 49ers don't need their offense to revolve around a running back anymore.

Published Mar 31, 2024

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.