Christian McCaffrey

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• Camp · Aug 31, 2026Aug 31, 2026

  Christian McCaffrey Camp Update — August 31: The Absence Is Over

  McCaffrey's two-week practice absence ended August twenty-third, when he returned to team drills on about seven reps and called the layoff planned rest. Cut day then resolved the backfield behind him to Kaelon Black and Jordan James, with the rest of the room cut or on the physically-unable-to-perform list.

• Camp · Aug 23, 2026Aug 23, 2026

  Christian McCaffrey Camp Update — August 23: Two Weeks Out While Backups Audition

  McCaffrey's tightness has now cost him two full weeks of practice, though Shanahan insists he'd play if it were a game week. Behind him, the backup job turned into a live audition — a rookie's debut, a return from a rib fracture, and a punt returner's breakout night.

• Camp · Aug 16, 2026Aug 17, 2026

  Christian McCaffrey Camp Update — August 16: A Week Lost to Tightness in Year Nine

  McCaffrey missed the week with tightness that Shanahan admits could become a month if mishandled, with both backup candidates also out. The June catch-volume case stands; the year-nine fragility worry just spoke first.

• 2026 PreviewJun 13, 2026

  Christian McCaffrey 2026 Season Preview — the fade fires, and he clears it

  NO CALL — the aging fade is real, and he's still the best back in football after you subtract it. The catches are the bet.

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  Show notes & transcript

  Here's a fun way to lose an argument in your draft room: tell everyone the aging-back rule says fade Christian McCaffrey. It does. He's in year nine, and backs that old decline about a point a game. Now here's how you win the argument anyway: he just averaged 21 and a half points — the best of any back in football — and you can subtract the entire fade and he's still the best of any back in football. The Muffed 2026 preview, where the rule fires and the player survives it.

  The season was total. Number one running back in fantasy, total and per game. A hundred two catches — the only back in football with a hundred — for 924 yards, paired with 1200 rushing and 17 total touchdowns. 413 touches, no missed games, no zeroes, and 17-plus points in 14 of 17 weeks. The signature snap was almost mundane on purpose: Week 9 against the Giants, third-and-nine in the red zone, a short Purdy throw he turns into a touchdown — the receiving back and the goal-line back in one play. That's the season: everything, everywhere, every week.

  Now the honesty, because this is a NO CALL and the honest part is the whole episode. Two patterns fire on him. One: he's a year-nine running back, and our aging rule docks that group about 1.1 points a game. Two — and this one's louder — his rushing efficiency was genuinely poor: 3.9 a carry, a hundred 66 yards below expected, 40-sixth of 49 qualified backs. He didn't beat his blocking last year. So why isn't this a fade? Because of where he wins. Take 21 and a half, subtract the full 1.1 aging dock, and you land north of 20 — still ahead of every other back on the board, Bijan and Gibbs included. The fade is real and it doesn't matter, because his floor is built from the stickiest stat in football — a hundred-plus catches, a 23 percent target share — not from the efficiency that slipped.

  What repeats, then: the receiving role, emphatically — volume is identity and a pass-catching back's volume is the safest kind. The touchdowns, 17 of them, are the one thing that could regress, but he's not even touchdown-dependent the way Taylor is; the catches carry him. What I won't tell you repeats: the rushing efficiency was already bad and he's a year older, so the ground game is the part to actually worry about — not the fantasy floor.

  The situation, per the reports: San Francisco used a third-round pick on a rookie back, Shanahan said again at June's OTAs that he wants to lighten the league-leading workload — in practice reps if not in games — and the 49ers went shopping at receiver, adding Mike Evans and Christian Kirk in free agency. Read all of it two ways, honestly. The optimistic read: fewer low-value carries, same goal-line and passing-down gold — efficiency up, fantasy value intact. The worried read: 413 touches becomes three 60, and some of those catches leak — to the rookie, or to a receiver room that just got two new mouths. We can't model a snap count. We can tell you the target share is the thing to guard.

  The price: pick six, the third back off the board. Verdict: NO CALL — and it's the system flexing. The two patterns that fire both get out-run by where his points actually come from, and the market priced him a hair below the two younger backs, which is the aging tax, fairly charged. The counter, said plainly: he's a 29-year-old with a long injury history and declining rush efficiency, and that's exactly the profile that falls off a cliff with no warning. The catches are the bet. They've never once let you down.

  Watch in September: the rookie's snap share, and whether McCaffrey's targets hold near a hundred-pace. If they do, the cliff talk is just talk. If they slip, this is the year. He's one of your guys? This show covers your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.

• 2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026

  Christian McCaffrey 2025 Season in Review

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  Show notes & transcript

  Christian McCaffrey finished 2025 as the number 1 running back in total PPR scoring AND the number 1 running back in PPR per game — that's the whole headline. After an injury-wrecked 2024, he played all 17 games and reminded everyone what a true bell-cow workload looks like in modern football. The 49ers built the offense around him as a runner and a receiver, and the dual-threat usage absolutely smashed. The efficiency numbers tell a more complicated story than the fantasy finish — but when you touch the ball 440 times and score 17 touchdowns, the box score wins.

  Now let's dig into the numbers. McCaffrey averaged 24.5 PPR points per game on a workload almost no other back in football touched — 311 carries plus 129 targets, with a 23 percent target share that's elite for any running back in any era. The receiving line carried a ton of the freight: 102 catches, 924 yards, 7 receiving touchdowns, paired with 1,202 rushing yards and 10 rushing scores, tied for tenth in the league. But the efficiency under the hood was pulling against him — 3.9 yards per carry, and a rushing yards over expected mark of minus 166, or minus 0.5 per attempt, which ranked 46th among qualified runners. This wasn't vintage hyper-efficient McCaffrey on the ground. This was volume, touchdowns, and pass-game work doing the work. And the consistency was the cleanest part of the profile — a rock-steady floor. He topped 17 PPR points in 14 of his 17 games, with only Houston at 9.8, the finale at 11.7, and a quiet 15.7 against Tennessee dipping below. Six games above 27, no zeroes, no missed weeks. That's the floor that wins fantasy regular seasons.

  The play that captures the year came in Week 9 against the Giants — fourth quarter, 7:42 left, third and 9 from the 9, 49ers up 34-27. Shotgun, Purdy, short left to McCaffrey, walks it in. Third down, red zone, conversion and a score on one snap. That's his 2025 fantasy season in a single play. He wasn't winning weeks with breakaway runs — he was winning them by being the guy San Francisco trusted on every critical down, in every part of the field, as a runner and a receiver. The number 1 running back in fantasy. Full stop.