Fantasy Football 2025: RB Christian McCaffrey player profile

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• No one can beat peak Christian McCaffrey: McCaffrey at his best has outscored every other active running back at their best.
• Injuries have been a major concern: McCaffrey has missed significant playing time in three of the last five seasons and is among the older active running backs.
• Subscribe to PFF+: Get access to player grades, PFF Premium Stats, fantasy football rankings, all of the PFF fantasy draft research tools and more!

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.

Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs will impact each player’s fantasy football outlook.

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Saturday, May 10

Player performance

Christian McCaffrey was the eighth overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft. Since he was drafted, there have been 10 cases of a running back averaging at least 24 fantasy points per game in a season, and he has four of them. That includes the only season in the past three years, and the top two seasons in fantasy points per game.

He’s achieved his elite fantasy production by being the best receiving back in the league, as well as the best runner. Since joining the San Francisco 49ers, he’s also benefited from playing in one of the best offenses in the league behind a strong offensive line.

McCaffrey’s downfall in recent seasons has been his injuries. He played every game in his first three seasons. In 2020, he suffered an ankle injury, an A/C joint sprain and glute strain, leading him to only play three games. In 2021, he suffered a hamstring strain followed by an ankle sprain, leading him to play in seven games. This past year, he dealt with Achilles tendinitis in both feet. He returned for four games but then a PCL sprain ended his season. 

By all accounts, McCaffrey should be at 100% for the start of the season. However, he is 29 years old, past the age when running backs peak. McCaffrey wasn’t very effective in his four games last season, but he likely wasn’t 100% in those games. He could be back to his normal self, in which case, he could be the top overall running back in fantasy. There is also a chance we never see the same player he was in 2023, when he was a first-team All-Pro. There is also a chance he never returns to being that player, or injuries continue to pile up, in which case, McCaffrey wouldn’t be worth drafting.

Projected role

McCaffrey would be the feature back if healthy, but given his age and injury history, there is a chance he sees a decreased role.

San Francisco traded away Jordan Mason, which should be a good sign that the 49ers trust McCaffrey to at least be healthy at the start of the season. The 49ers drafted Jordan James in the fifth round, but they’ve also drafted a running back in most seasons in their recent history, and after trading Mason, they could use a third running back.

McCaffrey is at a status where his role will be 100% dependent on what the 49ers think he can handle, regardless of who the backups are.

It is worth noting that the team moved on from Deebo Samuel Sr., who was a wide receiver who ran more than all other wide receivers and also caught a lot of short passes. There is a chance we could see McCaffrey used as a wide receiver a little more often to do some of the things Samuel did.

Impact of teammates

McCaffrey will continue having Kyle Shanahan as his head coach. Shanahan’s tendencies below have largely been based on when McCaffrey has been on the team and healthy. The team was at its best in 2023 when McCaffrey was with them and healthy for the whole season, and that was also the time when the 49ers targeted running backs the most.

The 49ers’ offensive line was a major asset for McCaffrey in 2023 when it had the highest team run-blocking grade. The line wasn’t as good in 2024, but it still ranked third overall. Left tackle Trent Williams had his run-blocking grade drop from the 90.0s to 81.4, which is still very good but not as elite as he once was. He will be 37 years old by the start of the season, so we can’t expect him to return to his 2023 form. Finding Dominick Puni was a big win for the 49ers’ offense. The primary concern heading into 2025 is at left guard after Aaron Banks landed with the Green Bay Packers. Nick Zakelj is penciled in for the starting role, but he hasn’t looked great in his two career starts.

This should still be one of the better offensive lines in the league, but it may fall out of the top five.

Bottom line

McCaffrey is one of the riskiest picks a fantasy manager can make early in drafts because he has a wider range of outcomes than most players. While anyone could get injured, McCaffrey’s repeated injuries make him more of an injury risk. Even if he doesn’t suffer another injury, the 49ers could consider limiting his workload, or the injuries could have stopped him from being as elite, which naturally happens with age anyway. He could also dominate leagues if he returns to his usual form.

Footnotes

• Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
• “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
• Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
• As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
• Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
• Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
• The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
• All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
• Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.

This news was originally published on this post .

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