The 49ers Will Regret Trading For Christian McCaffrey

In the middle of the night, the San Francisco 49ers stole All-Pro running back, Christian McCaffrey, from the Carolina Panther in exchange for 4 draft picks. Typically, I am all for teams going out there and acquiring the best talent available. Nothing bothers me more than when a team is on the cusp of greatness and refuses to take big roster swings.

There seems to be this overwhelming belief that McCaffrey to the 49ers is some massive game changer that is going to slingshot San Francisco back into the NFC Championship game. Perhaps this is the power of fantasy football as people overvalue McCaffrey’s impact based solely on the number of points he gives your unimportant fantasy team.

Christian McCaffrey is an injury-prone football player who excels at a position that has been proven obsolete in the modern game. I recognize the excitement of adding a dynamic skill player to aid a guy like Jimmy G who would love nothing more than to throw 30 running back screens all game and never have to look downfield.

This trade is even stranger when you zoom in further and remember that Kyle Shanahan, much like his father back in the day, is more than capable of generating 100-yard rushing games from literally anyone.

Whether it’s Matt Breida or Tevin Coleman or Jerick McKinnon or Raheem Mostert, Shanahan has never required an All-Pro back to get All-Pro production. McCaffrey doesn’t add anything. He’s just another guy in this Shanahan system except he’s the 5th highest-paid player on the team for no reason.

I guess you can convince me that McCaffrey adds something new to the passing game. He caught 100+ passes in his last healthy season but that was 3 years ago in an offense led by Kyle Allen where he was literally the only guy on the offense that deserved the ball in his hands.

If anything, McCaffrey becomes an extremely expensive decoy to open the field up more for Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk. Who knows, maybe they’ll finally fucking throw the ball to George Kittle who is a Top 3 tight end in the whole league but has pretty much only been used as a 6th offensive lineman.

It’s cool that the 49ers acquired a star. Not sure how that suddenly solves the fact that this team has allowed the 2nd most points in the NFL. Unless McCaffrey plans on playing middle linebacker as well, San Fran has bigger holes in their roster they need to solve in order to save their season.

Plus, if they plan on building around Trey Lance, they are going to need those 4 draft picks that are now in Carolina’s back pocket.

Personally, I wouldn’t sell my future for an overpaid running back who most likely won’t stay healthy for a full 17-game season after my quarterback had a season-ending injury and there is no chance for me to win the Super Bowl. Shrug.