SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Christian McCaffrey, not one to come off the field very often, was jogging to the sidelines before a third-and-13 play with 2:46 left in the game.
49ers coach Kyle Shanahan stared at his running back.
“Go back,” he said.
On a Sunday night when he tied a career high of seven runs of 10 yards or more in the 49ers’ 20-10 win, McCaffrey’s biggest play came on a 17-yard catch that set up his 4-yard touchdown run on the next play.
“I figured it was coming to me,” McCaffrey said, smiling. “It was a great call and throw and a big play.”
McCaffrey ran straight ahead to the first-down marker and turned to find the ball coming from quarterback Mac Jones, helped no doubt by the Falcons having only 10 players on the field.
“It’s absolutely embarrassing,” Falcons coach Raheem Morris said.
McCaffrey then scored his second touchdown of the night to put the 49ers up two scores. That capped off an emotional and physical win after the loss of team leader and star linebacker Fred Warner to a season-ending ankle injury last week.
“He is the aura-farming king,” tight end George Kittle said of Warner, who greeted players coming off the field after the game and caused quite a stir during it when he was shown on the big screen. “We almost had to go to a silent count because we couldn’t hear the play call.”
It likely didn’t matter. The play was probably for McCaffrey, who accounted for 201 yards rushing and receiving.
The 49ers (5-2) find ways to win, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t have Warner or Nick Bosa or quarterback Brock Purdy or their top receivers. Shanahan and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh always seem to find the right messaging and strategy — and they ride McCaffrey. Looking more and more like the 2023 Offensive Player of the Year, McCaffrey finished with 129 yards and two touchdowns rushing on 24 carries, and 72 yards receiving on seven catches. He accounted for 62 percent of their scrimmage yards, the highest percentage of any player in a game this season.
He won the matchup against Falcons running back Bijan Robinson, who works out with McCaffrey in the offseason and no longer leads the NFL in total yardage. The two players swapped jerseys after the game, and McCaffrey’s 201-yard one will be hanging in Robinson’s house soon.
“Such a blessing watching a guy like that go,” Robinson said. “He’s been doing it for a long time and he’s very hard to stop.”
Shanahan told his team Saturday night he wanted to run the ball 40 times and control the tempo, and 39 turned out to be plenty good enough.
“I challenged the team,” Shanahan said. “That’s not just an offensive thing. In order to do that, you gotta play defense like we did tonight. You gotta play special teams like we do tonight. And to be able to pull that off was huge.”
Kittle was playing for the first time after missing five games with a torn hamstring, and while he had no catches, he had a ball blocking for McCaffrey.
“Rushing the ball more than 30 times means you’re owning the time of possession and not letting (Robinson) get a ton of touches,” Kittle said. “It gives you that mindset that you’re going to hit people in the face as hard as we possibly can and give Christian and Brian Robinson as many carries as we can.”
Quarterback Mac Jones, now 4-1 stepping in as a starter for Purdy, calls McCaffrey his security blanket, but really that goes for Shanahan and the whole team.
“He’s huge,” Shanahan said. “He’s the most consistent player I’ve been around. I mean, he just allows you to stay on track. He gets every yard in the run game and more. And what he does in the pass game just, it’s rare you’re going to throw the ball to him and not get a completion.”
Christian McCaffrey accounted for 201 yards rushing and receiving against Atlanta. (Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
McCaffrey had the shake and bake and the stiff arm working and had a season high in rushing by the second quarter. All told he ran the ball 15 times between the tackles for 109 yards. But it was key third-down catches in each of the 49ers’ two touchdown drives that may have saved the day.
On the last one, Jones said that at practice, the coaches seemed like they wanted him to throw the ball to Kittle. He was lined up opposite from McCaffrey on the right side and ran an approximate 10-yard hook.
“They may have wanted me to go to the other side but I always just want to throw it to Christian,” Jones said, laughing.
(Jones, by the way, cashed in on a $400,000 contract incentive by winning his fourth start this season.)
McCaffrey becomes the third running back in the past 10 seasons (2016-25) with at least 100 scrimmage yards in each of his team’s first seven games, joining Kareem Hunt (2017 with Kansas City) and David Johnson (2016 with Arizona).
The 49ers ran the ball well despite center Jake Brendel being knocked out of the game with a hamstring injury. Kittle’s return, as well as the improved health and added practice reps of receiver Jauan Jennings, loomed large. They are two excellent blockers at their positions. With Kittle on the field the 49ers averaged 1.4 yards per carry before contact and ran for 151 yards and two TDs; without him, they had 12 yards on six carries with an average of negative-2.1 yards before contact.
McCaffrey said Kittle not only helps create holes for him in the running game, he also gives him more space to operate running routes.
“Yeah, it’s a different ball game when he’s in there,” McCaffrey said. “Even when he doesn’t have a big statistical game, the attention that he draws opens so much up.
“That’s why football is the biggest team game on the planet. Guys like that strike a lot of fear in coordinators.”
Football is also pretty cool when you can play a home game on national television, and prove that people shouldn’t write you off because you have a bunch of key players on crutches and knee scooters.
“Our record is a testament to the leadership,” McCaffrey said. “I think a guy like Fred or Bosa comes out, and you got young guys who haven’t been in that position step up the way they have, it’s coaching, it’s leadership. And that doesn’t happen everywhere, I can promise you that. And so it’s fun.
“It’s a fun group to be a part of in that, knowing that every week is going to be a fight, and guys are going to have to step up and do their job and get it done. I know we’re still hungry, man. … The challenge this week will be coming back from a big win like this and maintaining that focus, maintaining that intent and continuing to get better.”
And continuing to get the ball to McCaffrey.
Source link
