San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey took every rep in Sunday’s win over the Los Angeles Rams, with Elijah Mitchell saddled to the bench. Over two weeks, McCaffrey has taken 91.7% of the reps.
McCaffrey isn’t fretting about his usage early in the season.
“I think it’s all dependent on how the game’s going,” McCaffrey said on Tuesday, via NBC Sports Bay Area. “We had a lot of breaks last game. Sometimes, that’s just how it goes. There’s gonna be games, too, where Mitchell gets four or five carries in a row on multiple drives because he’s playing well, and he’s feeling it, and I’ll be out. It’s really such a situational thing. Ya know, I don’t think it’s ever a plan for us to get all the carries or not. It’s just sometimes that’s just how the games go.”
Given that the Niners had a short week coming up, it was a surprise Mitchell didn’t get any run at all on Sunday. Head coach Kyle Shanahan admitted earlier this week it was an oversight on his part.
While playing every snap stands out, it wasn’t as if CMC’s workload was ridiculous. He took 20 carries Sunday after 22 in Week 1. Through two weeks, he has 48 total touches. However, it is notable that McCaffrey had just one game last season with 20-plus carries after joining the Niners. Given his injury history, it’s logical to expect Mitchell to siphon off more carries as the season progresses, particularly on a short week versus the New York Giants this Thursday.
McCaffrey has played 100 percent of the offensive snaps for his team 15 times in his career, something all other running backs have only done 10 times in that same span, per Josh Dubow of The Associated Press.
Sunday marked the first time McCaffrey had played 100 percent of the snaps since Week 15 of 2019 with the Panthers.
Through two weeks, McCaffrey leads the NFL with 268 rush yards. It’s the most rushing yards through Weeks 1 and 2 in his career and the first time over 200 yards, per NFL Research. His 304 scrimmage yards tops all RBs and is second-most overall (behind Justin Jefferson‘s 309 — all receiving).
McCaffrey is the first 49ers player with 100-plus rush yards and 1-plus rush TD in each of the team’s first two games in a season since Garrison Hearst in 1998. CMC could become the first player in team history to do so in the season’s first three games.
