Christian McCaffrey is one of the most devastating players in the NFL with the ball in his hands, but so much of his success since his trade to the San Francisco 49ers has surrounded what he does when he doesn't have possession.
A huge part of the appeal of pairing running back McCaffrey with the similarly ultra-versatile wide receiver Deebo Samuel was the strain having both of them on the field could potentially put on defenses.
That potential has been realized, and it was clear for all to see during the 49ers' rout of the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 13.
Perhaps the play that exemplified the influence McCaffrey can wield even without the ball came on San Francisco's final touchdown of the 42-19 blowout.
Samuel added the finishing touches to a dominant display, racing into the endzone on a 48-yard tunnel screen. He went untouched for his third score of the game, though that was only the case because of McCaffrey's effort in selling the run fake in the opposite direction.
The threat of McCaffrey pulled the weakside linebacker and the cornerback on the far side of the field away from the playside, ensuring neither had any hope of being able to catch Samuel after the blocking created a chasm for him to get into the open field.
Shanahan was asked about McCaffrey's effort on that play in his Wednesday press conference ahead of the Week 14 game with the Seattle Seahawks.
His reply featured a very specific and effusive appraisal of McCaffrey.
"Christian is the best player I’ve ever been around without the ball in his hand," Shanahan said. "Just the little things he does that are so obsessive. Like, yeah, everybody can carry out fakes, but he goes to the extreme and it’s unbelievable."
The 49ers have made a habit of blowing teams out this season, and often it is the attention to the finer details that makes the difference in a team separating itself so successfully from its competition.
In the pressure cooker of the postseason, an intense focus on the most granular aspects of performance figures to be even more key and, if the 49ers do vindicate their status as Super Bowl favorites, McCaffrey's willingness to go to the extreme when he doesn't have the ball is likely to have been just as important as his incredible playmaking ability when it's in his grasp.
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