San Francisco 49ers Name Former Stanford Cardinal a Team Captain

Dylan Grausz | Sep 5, 2024

Feb 8, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) during a press conference before Super Bowl LVIII at Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

The San Francisco 49ers will soon begin their quest of defending their NFC crown and returning to the Super Bowl, with week one of the NFL season this week. As was the case with a lot of other teams, the 49ers are one of many who have announced their team captains for this year, and one of those players who will have the tremendous honor of wearing the signature ‘C’ on their jersey will be Stanford football legend Christian McCaffrey. Opting to go with eight, McCaffrey joins George Kittle, Fred Warner, Trent Williams, Deebo Samuel, Brock Purdy, Nick Bosa and Kyle Juszczyk as the 49ers captains.

McCaffrey joins Juszczyk as the only two first-time captains, although this will not be CMC’s first time donning the capital C, doing so from 2019-2022 when he was with the Carolina Panthers. Now in his third season in San Francisco, his second full campaign, McCaffrey’s captaincy is well deserved, after the former first-round pick put together arguably his best season as a pro in 2023, winning NFL Offensive Player of the Year, a first-team All-Pro selection and his third Pro-Bowl nod after leading the league in rushing yards, also helping the Niners reach Super Bowl LVIII.

Selected by the Carolina Panthers eighth overall in the 2017 draft, McCaffrey went on to spend the first five and a half seasons of his career in Carolina, where his best season came in 2019 when he rushed for 1,387 yards and 15 touchdowns while also contributing 1,005 receiving yards and four touchdowns, earning him both his first Pro Bowl selection and first-team All-Pro selection.

Joining the 49ers midway through the 2022 season after the Panthers traded him, McCaffrey immediately became a core player for the offense, finishing his first season in San Francisco with 746 rushing yards and six touchdowns to go along with 464 receiving yards and four receiving touchdowns in 11 games while also helping guide the team to an NFC Championship Game appearance.

A superstar player at Stanford from 2014-2016, McCaffrey had to share the backfield as a true freshman, but burst onto the scene in 2015 as a sophomore when he finished the year with 2,019 rushing yards and 645 receiving yards, while finding the endzone a total of 13 times to not only win Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year, but he also won numerous other awards such as the College Football Player of the Year, being named a consensus All-American and being named to the first-team All-Pac 12. 

The 49ers will begin their season on Monday Night Football on September 9 when they host the New York Jets at home. Kickoff slated for 5:15 p.m. (PT) and can be watched on ESPN and ABC.