Plus, more Christian McCaffrey talk and figuring out who is backup will be.
The 2024 season was an up-and-down season for the San Francisco 49ers running back group.
The season started with the biggest downer: Christian McCaffrey missing the first two months with an Achilles injury. With his injury, however, came the rise of Jordan Mason, among the league leaders in rushing yards in his stint as a starter.
Mason lost his touches when McCaffrey returned, but when it seemed the 2023 MVP candidate was hitting his stride, a fluke knee injury ended his season in Buffalo. Mason’s season also ended against the Bills, getting Isaac Guerendo in the mix and impressing in his brief fill-in as the workhorse back.
The hope is that 2025 will be different, with McCaffrey allegedly healthy heading into the summer. It should come as no surprise that a couple of questions will revolve around him:
What can we expect from McCaffrey?
Maybe not the silver lining 49ers fans want to hear after an abysmal 2024 season headlined by McCaffrey’s injuries, but the running back does have experience with a bounce-back season following injuries.
Due to a slew of injuries, McCaffrey played only ten games in the 2020 and 2021 seasons, causing some to question his durability even after playing in every game over the first three seasons of his career.
The Stanford alum returned to form in 2022, with over 1,100 rushing yards and more than 700 receiving yards with the Panthers and 49ers. 2023 was even better for him, with McCaffrey recording his first 2,000-yard from scrimmage season since he went 1,000/1,000 for Carolina in 2019.
But we are now four years removed from McCaffrey’s previous injury-riddled season, and he’s now getting ever closer to that dreaded 30th birthday for running backs. So, can we expect another return to form from McCaffrey in 2025? Achilles and knee injuries – both
What will McCaffrey’s workload be?
This answer will heavily influence the answer to our first question. Still, if Kyle Shanahan has any say—and I believe he has all the say—McCaffrey’s workload will be exactly the same in 2025 as it was in his previous two healthy seasons with the 49ers.
Before acquiring McCaffrey in 2022, the 49ers shared carries between Jeff Wilson, Elijah Mitchell, Tyrion Davis-Price, Jordan Mason, and Tevin Coleman. After acquiring McCaffrey, the shared workload came to an abrupt halt.
McCaffrey took 159 carries in his first 11 games with the 49ers in 2022 and averaged 4.7 yards per attempt. The next closest back to McCaffrey in rush attempts over those 11 games was Mason, who had 42. After the 49ers acquired McCaffrey, the former Panther took about 56 percent of running back carries for the remainder of the season.
The trend continued in 2023 for good reasons. McCaffrey exploded with over 2,000 yards from scrimmage, carried by a career-high 1,459 rushing yards on 272 rushing attempts. The next closest 49er in carries to him was Mitchell with 75. McCaffrey took 69 percent of running back carries for the 49ers en route to his offensive player of the year nod.
Even in his brief time in 2024, Jordan Mason went from averaging 17 attempts per game before McCaffrey returned from injury, only to take 19 attempts in the four games McCaffrey played, with even that number boosted with the 13 attempts he took against Buffalo after McCaffrey went down.
As long as McCaffrey is on the field, Shanahan will ensure his workload is heavy.
Who is RB2?
With Mason in Minnesota and Mitchell in Kansas City, the 49ers have an opening to take those minimal carries behind McCaffrey.
The leader in the clubhouse right now has to be Isaac Guerendo, who had some shine in 2024 but had limited chances. When Mason was dealing with a knock he picked up in Week 6, Guerendo picked up the slack, rushing for 99 yards on 10 attempts. A couple of weeks later, Guerendo scored his first rushing touchdown of his career against Dallas, totalling another 85 yards on 14 carries.
The rookie’s workload would drop from there with McCaffrey and Mason returning, but he would earn two starts in Weeks 14 and 15, combining for 135 yards on 31 attempts.
The only other realistic option to jump Guernedo on the depth chart would be the fifth-round rookie out of Oregon, Jordan James. James showed he could be an all-around back at Oregon, with decent speed and toughness to make the first man miss, but he doesn’t have the home run speed for consistent big runs. He ranked tenth in the FBS with 39 carries of ten or more yards, but only had three of those carries go for more than 20 yards.
The safest bet right now is that Shanahan trusts the longer-tenured 49er and starts with Guerendo out of the gate as the second running back. However, the best case is that we never have to discuss the second running back due to a healthy 2025 for Christian McCaffrey.