Christian McCaffrey Fantasy Overview

2024 Summary

Unless you awoke recently from a coma (welcome back), you know how McCaffrey’s 2024 went.

Poorly.

McCaffrey lost the first eight games to Achilles’ tendinitis. Then he tried to return for four games, sprained his right PCL, and then missed the rest of the year.

McCaffrey’s three full(?) weeks found him ranking 11th, 14th, and 22nd among PPR RBs – despite no TDs.

Injury History

We’ve seen McCaffrey miss large chunks of seasons before: 13 games in 2020, 10 in 2021. But he didn’t miss a game across three campaigns before that and played 33 of a possible 34 regular-season games in 2022-23.

The only game he missed in that span came in Week 17 of 2023, with San Francisco clinched and playing backups.

2025 Expectations

Projected Role & Competition

McCaffrey returned to the field for the first workouts of the offseason and drew strong reviews.

GM John Lynch: “He looks bouncy; he looks explosive. Christian likes the work. … Believe me, he’s as intense a competitor as I’ve ever been around. He’s maniacal in his approach.”

HC Kyle Shanahan: “He’s as ready as any player I’ve ever been around. Right now, he’s as healthy as can be. We’ve got to kind of protect him from himself. … He’s doing a lot less than he normally would do, but I know he’s excited on how healthy he feels.”

The Niners traded away Jordan Mason and let Elijah Mitchell walk. That leaves 2024 rookie Isaac Guerendo and 2025 fifth-rounder Jordan James behind McCaffrey.

Supporting Cast

The WR corps looks much different than it did a year ago.

Deebo Samuel’s gone. Brandon Aiyuk’s working back from a serious knee injury and isn’t expected to be ready for Week 1.

That leaves Jauan Jennings and Ricky Pearsall as the expected top two WRs to open the season. Both delivered some promising output in 2024. But both also trail well behind McCaffrey in career receiving production.

Production & Efficiency Trends

In case you only like to remember a year of history at a time, we’ll remind you that McCaffrey not only led all RB scorers in 2023. He tallied 3.3 more PPR points per game than No. 2 Kyren Williams, blasted No. 3 Raheem Mostert by 6.7 points per game, and played more games than the next four players behind him in those rankings.

Perhaps the most worrisome factor for McCaffrey is history.

He heads into his age-29 season, which hasn’t been historically friendly to RB scoring. Our aging-curve research says no RB archetype has averaged better than 82% of peak production in that season.

The counterpoint to that? Last season.

Derrick Henry ranked second in the league in carries and rushing yards and tied for the league TD lead at age 30. Alvin Kamara ranked fifth in PPR points per game at age 29. Aaron Jones ran a career-high 255 times and averaged 8.0 yards per catch across 51 receptions in the season that saw him turn 30.

McCaffrey gets a cushion similar to Kamara’s and Jones’ with his high-volume receiving. And he could prove even more important to the revamped San Francisco passing game in 2025

But age and injury history are risk factors.