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The real reason the 49ers' running game is broken

Originally posted on San Francisco 49ers on SI
By Parker Hurley | Last updated Oct 1, 2025 11:00 AM ET

Christian McCaffrey is the best fantasy football running back in the game right now and he is pacing to have a career year as a receiver. That is why there has not been as much attention on his struggles as a running back. While the San Francisco 49ers have struggled to run the ball as a team, McCaffrey may be at the heart of the issues.

Do the San Francisco 49ers need more from Christian McCaffrey?

McCaffrey currently has a 44.9% success rate as a runner, which is below his career average rate of 49.9%. However, it is worth noting that Brian Robinson has a 59% success rate. The defense is not as glued to Robinson as McCaffrey, which does make sense, but there is truth to McCaffrey being a less explosive runner.

McCaffrey averages 2.7 yards per before contact this season, and his career rate is 2.8. So, whether he is seeing the holes as well as always, or the holes are there, this is not the issue.

The issue is that he averages 0.6 yards after contact per attempt. For his career, he averages 1.9, and the lowest rate he has had with San Francisco is 1.7. This is a pretty big difference. If McCaffrey were averaging about 1.3 more yards per rush, his numbers would look much more in line with his expectations.

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We see that these are not tackles behind the line that he is being forced to break, either. We also see that McCaffrey is lacking the second gear that he used to have.

McCaffrey has a 6.7% breakaway run rate, which is the number of runs that go for 15 yards or more. That is well below his career average of 29.1%. His lowest with the 49ers was 18.3% in a limited sample last year, but before that, he had always been in the 30% range with the 49ers.

McCaffrey is getting into the second level, but when he gets there, he goes down. He does not have to turn every run into a 15-yard run, but he has been able to make the first defender miss more often in previous seasons, and when he did that, the explosive runs came behind it.

It is easy to think about a rookie left guard, changing quarterbacks, and the desire to use him nearly exclusively in the passing game and pass off his struggles as a runner. However, it is clear that a lot of the issues in the running game are directly tied to McCaffrey.

Perhaps San Francisco should try to get Brian Robinson on the field with McCaffrey to try to mix things and make things easier for how often McCaffrey is being used as a pass catcher.

This article first appeared on San Francisco 49ers on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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