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Was Grant Cohn's Question About Jordan Mason Out of Line?

If a running back is averaging 5.6 yards per carry and not getting the ball, the coach must not trust him.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers' running-back depth chart makes no sense.

Christian McCaffrey is the starter -- that makes sense. But the No. 2 running back is Elijah Mitchell, who's averaging 2.4 yards per carry, while the No. 3 running back is Jordan Mason, who's averaging 5.6 yards per carry. Which means Mason is more than doubling Mitchell's output. And yet Mitchell has 12 carries in the past three games while Mason has zero.

So I asked Kyle Shanahan about his running backs on Friday. I asked him what Mason needs to do to earn Shanahan's trust. Because to me, if a running back is averaging 5.6 yards per carry and not getting the ball, the coach must not trust him.

Shanahan bristled at the word trust. Insisted his decision had nothing to do with that. Said he doesn't look at stats and that Mitchell has done some good things for the 49ers, and left it at that.

With all due respect, I don't buy Shanahan's explanation. Of course he looks at stats. And Mason's are much better than Mitchell's this season. Playing Mitchell because of what he did in past seasons makes no sense.

My guess is Shanahan worries Mason will fumble the ball, because he did in training camp and preseason. As opposed to Mitchell, who never has fumbled in the NFL or college. Otherwise, there's no good reason to continue giving Mitchell carries when Mason could take them.

Keep in mind, Mason never has fumbled in a regular season game. Shanahan needs to trust him and get him the ball.

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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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