The 49ers have one of the most dangerous running backs in the NFL this season, and Kyle Shanahan hardly uses him anymore.
SANTA CLARA — The 49ers have one of the most dangerous running backs in the NFL this season, and Kyle Shanahan hardly uses him anymore.
Jordan Mason is averaging 5.1 yards per carry. He currently is the NFL’s 14th-leading rusher even though he has carried the ball just six times in the past three games.
Since Christian McCaffrey has returned from bilateral Achilles tendonitis, he’s averaging a mere 3.5 yards per carry. And yet he has played 88 percent of the 49ers’ offensive snaps while Mason has barely played at all.
On Wednesday, Shanahan explained his decision to feature McCaffrey and essentially shelve Mason.
“Even when Mason was going a ton, we didn’t get Isaac (Guerendo) a lot (of carries),” Shanahan said. “So I mean, we’re just not a big three-man-rotation team, especially when you have a solidified starter. We’re not trying to get Christian off the field more. We want to keep him fresh and keep him at his best, but Christian’s also a guy who gets better as he goes. He’s a guy who feels a lot more comfortable being out there. I also don’t think the way these games have gone, we didn’t run the ball much last week at all in general. So not many people, we didn’t, I think we got 14 runs. So when that’s the case, you’re not going on long drives, you only have 13 plays or 14 plays in the whole first half with one of them being close to a two-minute drive, the other’s being four-and-out. It’s just not going to work out that way.”
TRANSLATION: The 49ers spend a ton of money on McCaffrey so they can’t split his carries with a running back who makes less than $1 million per season and outproduces him.