What to Expect from 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey in 2025

One of the main reasons the 49ers think they'll bounce back next season is Christian McCaffrey.
Dec 1, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) warms up before a game against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images
Dec 1, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) warms up before a game against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images / Mark Konezny-Imagn Images
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One of the main reasons the 49ers think they'll bounce back next season is Christian McCaffrey.

Last year, he missed most of the offseason and the first eight games of the regular season with bilateral Achilles tendonitis. When he returned, he was not as efficient or as explosive as he had been in the past -- he averaged just 4.0 yards per carry in 2024. Then in just his fourth game back, he injured his PCL and missed the rest of the season.

Now what should we expect from McCaffrey in 2025?

McCaffrey will turn 29 in June, so he's getting old for a running back. Plus he has touched the ball 2,013 times in his career, so he has tons of tread on his tires. And he's not a big running back -- he's built more like a wide receiver.

And yet, he should have a full offseason this year. And then in Week 1 if he's healthy, you can bet that Kyle Shanahan will give him at least 25 touches as if nothing ever happened to McCaffrey. And he might look like the McCaffrey of old for a month or two. But if the 49ers keep overusing him, he will keep getting injured.

At this stage of McCaffrey's career, it seems ambitious to expect him to stay healthy for a full season. The 49ers would be wise to limit his touches and his him in a running-back rotation, but they never have and probably won't.

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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.