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Grading the 49ers Running Backs at the Bye Week

For Brock Purdy's sake, Christian McCaffrey can't come back soon enough.

Grant Cohn

Oct 10, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) hands the ball off to running back Jordan Mason (24) during the first half against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images
Oct 10, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) hands the ball off to running back Jordan Mason (24) during the first half against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images / Steven Bisig-Imagn Images
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The 49ers have the week off, so let's grade them position by position based solely on what they've done this season. We've already graded the quarterback.

POSITION: Running back

NAMES: Jordan Mason, Isaac Guerendo, Patrick Taylor Jr.

GRADE: B.

COMMENTARY: This position group has performed admirably well considering Christian McCaffrey hasn't played a snap yet. Jordan Mason has emerged as a quality strarting running back who should have been in the rotation the past two seasons. He currently is the NFL's third-leading rusher despite playing through an AC joint sprain in his shoulder the past three games.

Meanwhile, Isaac Guerendo has emerged recently as perhaps the second coming of Raheem Mostert. Guerendo shares his jersey number, upright running style and 4.3 speed. And he has been the closer in the 49ers' past two wins.

Despite the emergence of Mason and Guerendo, the 49ers still miss McCaffrey, particularly in the passing game. Because neither Mason nor Guerendo is a third-down back. On third downs this season, the 49ers frequently have used their fullback as a third-down back, which is less than ideal.

The lack of a receiving threat out of the backfield has hurt Brock Purdy's performance, as he has been holding onto the ball longer than ever before. In the past, he had the ultimate checkdown weapon -- McCaffrey. Now Purdy has to be his own check-down threat, meaning he has to keep the ball and run with it for first downs.

For Purdy's sake, McCaffrey can't come back soon enough.

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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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