It’s that time of year when clips circulate of Christian McCaffrey cutting around cones or shuffling over tackling dummies. Doesn’t he look good?! Guess who’s back, baby!??!
The thing about McCaffrey is that, even when he’s back, it’s hard to know for how long. Yes, that’s true of every player, but it’s especially true of McCaffrey, whose Achilles tendonitis and PCL injury last year contributed to a godawful season for the San Francisco 49ers.
No one should be more concerned with McCaffrey’s health than Brock Purdy.
Except for maybe 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan. And GM John Lynch.
The 49ers’ success seems to revolve around McCaffrey, because Purdy’s performance seems to revolve around McCaffrey. And Shanahan and Lynch’s jobs now revolve around Purdy, whom they signed to a five-year, $265 million deal in May. It was a surprisingly neat-and-tidy process that could’ve been far more complicated. After all, the 49ers signed Purdy at the lowest point in his short career — and the team multiplied his annual earnings by 40 from last year to this year. Shanahan and Lynch showed their commitment.
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The thing is, the contract is emblematic of the kind of player Purdy is when McCaffrey is on the field, not what the QB has looked like without McCaffrey.
There’s a stark difference. Here’s a look, via FOX Sports research.
| Split | Games | Record | Win Pct | YPA | Rating | TD/Gm | TO/Gm |
| With | 23 | 18-5 | .783 | 9.3 | 113.3 | 2.1 | 0.7 |
| Without | 13 | 5-8 | .385 | 8.6 | 94.7 | 1.6 | 1.1 |
There’s some necessary context to those statistics: McCaffrey’s injury coincided with injuries to WR1 Brandon Aiyuk (ACL and MCL) and LT Trent Williams (ankle). But McCaffrey has been the bedrock upon which Purdy has executed Shanahan’s successful game plans.
These numbers show a lot of different things. But they absolutely show how much Purdy benefits from McCaffrey.
“It’s awesome,” Purdy said in early August when asked about having a healthy McCaffrey at practice. “Obviously, he’s a guy that the defense has to be accounting for. And the minute he goes into a one-on-one situation, I’m drooling over that. I want that. And we gotta capitalize on that. … And then obviously, by him being there, other guys open up as well.”
It seems some folks have forgotten just how dominant McCaffrey was when healthy. Why else would he rank 73rd in the “NFL Top 100” series this year? In 2023, McCaffrey had 272 carries for 1,459 yards and 14 touchdowns and 67 catches for 564 yards and seven touchdowns.
He has been simply incredible … when healthy.
There’s no denying McCaffrey’s injury history, with a strain or sprain to seemingly every limb and/or joint in his body: hip strain, ankle sprain, shoulder sprain, glute strain, hamstring strain, ankle sprain, rib sprain, calf strain, Achilles sprain, PCL sprain.
It’s like a poem about bodily injury.
There’s also no denying the history of running backs flirting with age 30 — and their inevitable decline. McCaffrey turned 29 in June. Perhaps because of that, the 49ers are trying to implement a load-management plan for their star running back. It seems to be working.
“I feel great, man,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot as far as injuries go in my career. Had to come back from a lot. Any time you get through one of those [joint] practices and feel good, I get excited and don’t take it for granted. I know that every day I’ve got to work on a bunch of different things to keep it that way.”
The results should pay off for McCaffrey and Purdy, who are enjoying a solid — if not quiet — offseason. The biggest storyline in 49ers training camp is about the receivers and their injuries. But it seems like the team has a strong core that is both healthy and ready to play: Purdy, McCaffrey, tight end George Kittle and receiver Ricky Pearsall.
Led by Shanahan, that core will be in charge of helping Purdy find his way back to his form from 2023, when he threw for 4,280 yards, 31 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. And staggeringly, he managed a touchdown percentage of seven, with 9.6 yards per attempt. The 49ers finished 12-4. But with most of his playmakers injured last year, Purdy regressed in a big way. He threw for 3,864 passing yards, 20 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. That touchdown percentage fell to 4.4, with the YPA dipping to 8.5.
Brock Purdy (right) finished fourth in MVP voting in 2023, right behind Christian McCaffrey. (Photo by Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images)
The biggest point of tension was Purdy’s issues with when to step up — and when to step back. With the contract on the horizon, perhaps he felt like he had to do more for his team. And that backfired. Perhaps he simply didn’t have the support he needed at this phase of his career. He is, after all, a fourth-year QB who was the last pick in the 2022 draft. There are ways his game could evolve, but for now, he’s a point guard who needs to get rid of the ball on schedule, because his talents aren’t comparable in any way to such superlative QBs as Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen.
There’s plenty of room to grow. Now that Purdy has a new contract, he’ll have some time to do that. His team will have to support him through those growing pains better than it did last year. Shanahan issued his support for Purdy after the team inked him.
“I want him to be the leader he’s always been,” Shanahan said in May. “There’s no worse thing to do than ask people to do something extra just because of their contract. That’s when you start making stuff up. Brock’s earned his contract, and he’s going to earn what he gets going forward.”
The other person who should help him earn it?
Well, that should be McCaffrey.
Because there might come a day when Purdy can carry an offense without superstar support. But today is not that day. Or, at least, last year was not that year. So McCaffrey’s return to the lineup will be paramount as the 49ers try to keep their championship window open.
Before joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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