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How Christian McCaffrey's Absence Impacts the Entire 49ers Offense

Head coach Kyle Shanahan explained this phenomenon Monday on a conference call with Bay Area reporters.

Grant Cohn

Jan 28, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) is congratulated after scoring a touchdown against the Detroit Lions during the second half of the NFC Championship football game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Jan 28, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) is congratulated after scoring a touchdown against the Detroit Lions during the second half of the NFC Championship football game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
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The 49ers run the ball just fine without their All Pro running back, Christian McCaffrey. Passing the ball is the real challenge.

Technically, McCaffrey isn't the 49ers' No. 1 receiver because he doesn't lead the team in targets or catches or receiving yards. But when he's no the field and Brock Purdy drops back to pass, opposing defenses mostly are scared of McCaffrey because they can't cover him man to man. So they double him or play zone coverage which creates space for everyone else.

Head coach Kyle Shanahan explained this phenomenon Monday on a conference call with Bay Area reporters.

SHANAHAN: "When you have a special third-down back or when you have such a special player out of the backfield, how it's very hard for safeties and linebackers to really cover someone out of the backfield truly one-on-one who is that good. And so when they do it, it forces two players to guard them. Just how much easier it makes things to game plan. Very similar to when I was with [former NFL WR] Julio Jones in Atlanta. No matter what, you knew when they were in man-coverage, you knew where that middle third safety was cheating, because he had to. And whenever he did that, I think back to the 2016 offense we had in Atlanta and just how good everyone else did because how good their looks would always because If they weren't that way, there was just a different dude at wideout on the other side. And it's very similar with Christian in a totally different way because he’s not an outside wide receiver, but when you can get a running back that way in the pass game, that people can't guard on their own, it is a very good security blanket for the quarterback and play caller and it's also very good looks for everybody else."

No wonder Purdy has thrown so many tight-windown throws this season.

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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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