Nick Waggoner
Santa Clara, California – After another physical and fierce victory against the Rams of Los Angeles last week, the ball carrier of the 49ers of San Francisco, Christian McCaffrey, stood in front of a desk with a big smile on his face.
For a fifth consecutive week, the Niners racing game had trouble starting and has not yet managed to make a touch on the ground. McCaffrey’s smile was rooted in a revealing statistic: the 2025 niners are the second team in the past 90 years not to score in the first five weeks and still start 4-1 or better.
“Victory is the most important thing, and there is no matter how we will get it,” said McCaffrey. “I think everyone and their mother want the racing game to go a little more – including me – but we just have to continue to progress and continue to work there and make the guys come back and continue to push and stay with that.”
During the first five weeks, McCaffrey is 23rd of the NFL for ground yards per match (56.4), 40th for yards per race (3.1), 36th for front rogrations per race (1.52) and 33rd for yards after contact by race (1.58). Only 5.5 % of its 91 races totaled more than 10 yards, which classified it in 113rd in the league.
Questions about the lack of production in the field have multiplied from week to week, the reproaches being pointed out in all directions. Although there are several reasons for the difficulties of the Niners in the game on the ground, the simplest explanation could be the best: in a team that has missed most of its best and most accomplished players, McCaffrey is the obvious target of opposing defensive coordinators.
The Niners, without the close winger George Kittle (ischio-legs), the receivers Brandon Aiyuk (knee), Jauan Jennings (ribs, ankle, shoulder) and Ricky Pearsall (knee) for all or part of the season, are more centered on McCaffrey than ever.
In the first five weeks, McCaffrey obtained 47.6 % of San Francisco’s offensive keys, a rate that would be the highest in the League for any player since 2022 and is almost 5 % higher than its previous summit of 2023 (42.9 %).
But while the defenses concentrated their match plans on the slowdown of McCaffrey on the field and dared the close wingers Jake Tonges and Luke Farrell or the recipients Kendrick Bourne, Demarcus Robinson and Marquez Valdes-Scantling to beat them, McCaffrey has always found a way to be one of the most constant threats of the league.
McCaffrey, whom coach Kyle Shanahan calls the best ball carrier receiver he has ever seen, ranks first among all the players in melee (669) and in touches (130) and has reached three figures in melee yards in each of the first five games.
In simple terms: McCaffrey undergoes the heaviest workload in the NFL and continues to help the Niners win despite the opposing defenses that do everything they can to eliminate it. And he did it after Achilles and his knee injuries limited him to four games in 2024.
“He is one of the hardest and the braceiest guys I have ever known – how he approaches every day, how physical he is,” said Shanahan. “Christian was incredible. He has encountered very hard looks but he is not afraid of anything.”
McCaffrey hastens to emphasize that it is not uncommon to have periods when it is not easy to accelerate production. McCaffrey has even started his career with the 49ers with even less success than so far this season.
After arriving in the middle of 2022, McCaffrey collected an average of 53.8 yards on the ground per game and 4.0 yards per race in its first five complete games with the Niners. He compensated with 51.6 yards on reception per match.
With defensive game plans centered on him in 2025, McCaffrey is seventh among all the players for the yards on reception per game (77.4) and the yards after caught (278), and third for the receptions (39). At its current rate, McCaffrey would finish with 1,316 yards on reception and break the NFL record for yards on reception in one season by a ball carrier (1,097 Del Shofner in 1958). He also has three touchdown on reception in five games (mostly for the most part by a ball carrier this season).
“He’s the man,” said the quarter-Arrière Mac Jones. “He is definitely good in his work and he is always present with each game, whatever happens. He also takes care of certain things, and he is just in the right places and performs games.”
While McCaffrey continued to be the central point of the Niners offensive when they start their rapid start, the Niners hope that reinforcements are on the way to help not only strengthen the race game, but also to diversify the offensive.
Maybe no player on the list is better placed to do these two things than Kittle. Since Kittle arrived as a recruit in 2017, the Niners made an average of 4.8 yards per race with Kittle on the field. With Kittle absent from the field, this number falls 4 meters per attempt.
This testifies to the domination of Kittle as a racing blocker – he has been second in the NFL for racing block victories since 2017 – and as a receiver of passes. Whenever Kittle is on the ground, the Niners can align the same staff in different ways, forcing the opposing defenses to honor their versatility.
This is particularly true for the seconds and safetys which are now free to attack the melee line and McCaffrey. A second quarter match against Arizona gave an overview of how the defenses focus on McCaffrey beyond bringing additional defenders to the melee line closer.
During a first and ten throws to the right, the cardinals took the unusual measure to send the two interior seconds to hunt McCaffrey through space “C” on the right side. They tackled it for a loss of 5 meters.
Although Kittle is not expected to return before week 7 at the earliest, he is about to come back. The return of Aiyuk, Jennings and Pearsall should also help open certain things and the guard Ben Bartch is eligible to return from the injured reserve after week 6.
Being better health should also help lighten McCaffrey’s workload because it is currently on track for 442 keys, which would be equal to eighth row in the history of the league.
For his part, McCaffrey did not hesitate to answer questions about the race game and to know if he, at 29 years old and leaving an injury, lost a step or two. McCaffrey said on several occasions that the niners were “close” to a breakthrough in the ground game.
An additional block here or a tackle forced there could lead to the type of long gain which would instantly strengthen the lean yards by average race, says McCaffrey.
Against the Rams last week, McCaffrey forced 12 missed plated (seven on races, five on receptions), his most forced plated since he joined the Niners. However, the Rams forced McCaffrey to win all his yards on the ground after contact, because it was limited to -3 yards before contact in this match.
McCaffrey also admitted that he could be better with the rest of his offensive teammates. In the meantime, these teammates find the inspiration in the way he finds a way to influence victory with a deck so heavily against him.
“There were so many doubts at the start of this season about the ability of this guy to hold the blow after what he experienced,” said back Kyle Juszczyk. “I think the guy touches the ball 30, 40 times per game and he’s still standing and he always does his thing.”
