Last season, San Francisco 49ers star Christian McCaffrey had more offensive touches than any other player in the league as he won the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year Award. Typically, you want to give a do-it-all player like him as many touches as possible. But in a surprising twist, it sounds like the team wants to take the opposite approach this season.
During a recent interview, San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan revealed that the team actually wants to cut down the number of touches for Christian McCaffrey in an effort to protect him from injury.
“We have guys that can run the ball,” Shanahan said according to The Athletic. “We have to protect Christian from himself. He doesn’t like to ever come out no matter what the situation is and I do think that’s something we could protect him with more. When you are such a threat in the pass game, it’s a little bit different. . . . But if he’s just taking the wear and tear with 20 carries and stuff every game — and he’s definitely good enough to do that and he has proved he can stay healthy — but you’d like to take some of that off of him and give it to other guys also.”
Obviously, McCaffrey will still get his fair share of touches, but it sounds like the team is going to try to be careful with him.
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