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Analyst Predicts Big Game this Week for 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey

Technically, we still don't know if Christian McCaffrey will play this Sunday.

Grant Cohn

Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) before the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) before the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
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Technically, we still don't know if Christian McCaffrey will play this Sunday.

49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said he expects McCaffrey to play, which is a good sign. But even if he does step on the field, what kind of a workload will the 49ers give him? Will he carry the offense like he used to do or merely get his feet wet?

It would be prudent for the 49ers to be cautious with McCaffrey and use him in a rotation in his first game of the season considering he can't be in football shape just yet. But the 49ers rarely rotate running backs. Instead, they play the hot hand, which usually is McCaffrey.

"Maybe this is wishcasting after spending the first overall pick in my fantasy draft on a player who has taken zero snaps so far this season," writes NFL Network analyst Marcas Grant. "Or maybe it’s having watched Kyle Shanahan force-feed his guy in the pursuit of a consecutive-games touchdown record. Whatever the reason, I expect Christian McCaffrey’s 2024 debut to look like he never left, with the running back scoring 20 fantasy points Sunday. That’s great news for CMC fantasy owners and 49ers fans. Not so much for the Buccaneers."

Grant's analysis might seem crazy, but I think he's right on. Everyone is telling Shanahan to use McCaffrey sparingly this weekend. Shanahan never does what everyone tells him to do. He goes against the grain.

Nothing would make him happier than McCaffrey going for 100 yards and two touchdowns when people like me said he shouldn't play.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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