San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

NFL futures: The case for Christian McCaffrey winning Offensive Player of the Year

By Griffin Carroll | Last updated 8/4/23

We'll wrap our week of Offensive Player of the Year picks with Christian McCaffrey, acquired by San Francisco before Week 7 last season. He was an immediate high-impact player in the offense, and if he stays healthy and averaging 20+ touches per game, he's a fantastic choice in this market.

Christian McCaffrey: +1400 to win OPOY (FanDuel)

In the 11 regular-season games McCaffrey played for the 49ers, he put up 1,210 total yards from scrimmage (746 rushing, 464 receiving). He scored 10 touchdowns in those 11 games and caught 52 passes.

Extrapolate that out to a full 17 games with the 49ers (no guarantee in 2023 given McCaffrey's injury history), and that would come to approximately the following:

1,870 yards from scrimmage (1,153 rushing, 717 receiving)
80 receptions
16 touchdowns

Now, that's of course an imperfect way to view things, but there's worse ways to take stock of a situation. Are those numbers good enough to merit OPOY consideration?

Of the past seven non-QB winners of this award, their average yards from scrimmage in their winning seasons was 2,047, so we'd need to see a lift from McCaffrey across a full 17-game slate for him to win this award. That seems manageable here. There are plenty of reasons San Francisco would want to involve CMC as much as possible, especially if the Niners think the running back may have only one to two more seasons of elite play ahead.

If he can maintain his touchdown totals, he's on a nice pace, as yardage and volume have been more of an indicator of who wins this award. Only three of the past seven non-QB winners have finished with 14+ TDs.

To play devil's advocate, the cause for concern here would be that San Francisco deploys more of a split at running back in order to keep McCaffrey healthy for a playoff run. That's fair, but when you look at some of the other running backs in the league, McCaffrey seems like the best bet for a massive statistical boon. It doesn't hurt that the 49ers hardly have the QB position figured out, which could lead to more short passes and screens for McCaffrey.

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