3 questions for the 49ers at running back

Running back was a revolving door for the San Francisco 49ers in the first few years of the Kyle Shanahan era.

But that all changed when the 49ers acquired Christian McCaffrey in the 2022 season. Now, it’s hard for any running back not named McCaffrey to get consistent carries, and for good reason, with McCaffrey being one of the best offensive weapons in the league.

But with McCaffrey coming off one of his least productive seasons in terms of yards per attempt and him starting to get a little bit longer in the tooth, there might be some serious questions surrounding the position group.

Here are three questions that will be answered over the next six months for the 49ers running backs:

What does Christian McCaffrey look like as a running back in 2026?

Christian McCaffrey was easily the Offensive Player of the Year and the likely MVP for the 49ers during the 2025 season, but that wasn’t because of his effectiveness on the ground but his role as an offensive weapon. But if you take Christian McCaffrey and remove the receiving numbers and look at him just as a running back, it was one of the least productive seasons as a pro.

Yes, he surpassed 1,200 yards, but that was more of a product of quantity over quality. McCaffrey eclipsed 300 rushing attempts for the first time in his career. But that number of rushes didn’t produce the results you’d expect from what McCaffrey had shown in his previous seasons with the 49ers.

For just the third time in his career, McCaffrey averaged fewer than four yards per rush, the first two instances coming in an injury-riddled 2020 when he averaged 3.8 yards per rush attempt in just three games, and his rookie season in 2017 when he averaged 3.7 yards per attempt on 117 carries.

To give some context to McCaffrey’s 2025 production on the ground, he became the 41st running back since 2010 to eclipse 300 rushing attempts in a season. Of those 41 running backs, McCaffrey’s 1,202 rushing yards ranked 39th, only beating out 2021 Najee Harris who had 1,200 yards on 307 attempts and 2010 Cedric Benson who finished 1,111 yards on 321 attempts.

McCaffrey was the most important piece to the 49ers’ offense in 2025, but the 49ers would probably prefer him to give more production than a Najee Harris or a Cedric Benson, especially with that heavy of a workload.

Will Christian McCaffrey have as heavy of a workload?

Now, this is three questions for the running back position, but we will cheat a bit and include McCaffrey as a pass catcher in this next section.

Due to injuries and Brandon Aiyuk falling off the face of the earth, McCaffrey stepped into a larger role than expected and not only led the 49ers in rushing, but also receptions and receiving yards. Due to that, McCaffrey finished with a career-high 413 touches, just the second time he’s eclipsed the 400-touch plateau in his career.

Not only was the 413 touches the most in his career, but McCaffrey led the league in touches by a healthy margin. Jonathan Taylor finished second in the league with his 369 touches, with Bijan Robinson third at 366 touches (although Robinson finished with 172 more total yards than McCaffrey despite the 47 fewer touches).

Now, with the additions of Mike Evans, De’Zhaun Stribling, and now Deebo Samuel, and George Kittle ideally staying healthy, McCaffrey’s role as a pass catcher will likely drop to closer to the 65-70 receptions per season he averaged entering the 2025 season, and in theory, that helps save his legs to improve on his 2025 season as a running back.

But all of that doesn’t even factor in that McCaffrey hit the dreaded age of 30 for running backs, which likely won’t affect his workload, but if the production on the ground is like it was in 2025, that ugly word regression might rear its head.

How will the other running backs be used?

For the third consecutive year, the 49ers used a draft pick to add a running back, using the 90th overall selection in April’s draft on Indiana’s Kaelon Black. Drafting running backs, however, hasn’t meant much usage, with Isaac Guerendo and Jordan James combining for just 84 rush attempts over their combined tenures with San Francisco.

The 49ers were so confident in Guerendo and James entering training camp last year, they went out and sent a sixth-round pick to Washington for one season of Brian Robinson, who finished second on the team in rushes with his 92 rushing attempts.

I think the short answer to this question is that it really doesn’t matter how the non-McCaffrey running backs will be used, as they will likely only see the field when McCaffrey needs a breather. Since the 49ers acquired McCaffrey, he has been far and away the most used running back on the team.

With 2023 being McCaffrey’s first full season with the 49ers, here’s the breakdown year-to-year since 2023 of McCaffrey’s carries versus the other running backs (which removes Deebo Samuel and QB scrambles), throwing out the 2024 season since McCaffrey missed 13 games:

2023: McCaffrey – 272 carries

Elijah Mitchell, Jordan Mason, Tyrion Davis-Price combined – 121 carries

2025: McCaffrey – 311 carries

Brian Robinson – 92 carries

In his two full healthy seasons, McCaffrey has taken 74.5 percent of all carries taken by 49ers running backs. It’s hard to imagine that any of Black, Guerendo, or James will change that in 2026. Maybe the addition of Samuel throws a wrench in things, but even then, it’s hard to imagine McCaffrey not getting around that 75 percent share of the carries we have seen.

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