If anyone is going to reclaim the lost value of the running back position, it’s Christian McCaffrey.
On Sunday, the do-it-all weapon broke Jerry Rice’s franchise record of 12 consecutive games with a touchdown, ending up in the end zone for the 13th straight game.
… Then he did it three more times, including this outrageously graceful hurdle.
McCaffrey scored so many times that Trent Williams admitted he lost track of the touchdown tally.
He celebrated McCaffrey’s fourth TD with a three-wood, joking that he “should’ve brought the four-iron out.”
Williams vouched for McCaffrey’s chances at MVP, for the first real time it’s been mentioned this season.
“Of course,” Williams said, asked if he could see him winning the award. “All them streaks come to an end eventually, right? This might be the year. I can see it.”
Mentioning any accolades this early is an objectively silly exercise, including on this writer’s behalf.
But…
But!
It was mentioned, and McCaffrey is clearly the most valuable player on the 49ers’ offense. The 49ers are clearly the best team in football. And a running back hasn’t had a real shot at winning MVP since Adrian Peterson won it in 2012 by coming just shy of the single-season rushing record (Eric Dickerson’s 2,105 yards), with 2,097 yards.
It might be time.
The question is, what would it take?
For McCaffrey, it depends on maintaining an outrageous statistical pace.
As it stands, McCaffrey has 459 rushing yards and 6 rushing touchdowns, along with 18 catches for 141 receiving yards and 1 receiving touchdown.
That has him on pace for 1,951 rushing yards, 26 rushing touchdowns and 77 receptions for 599 receiving yards and 4 receiving touchdowns.
30 touchdowns would be the most for a non-quarterback since LaDainian Tomlinson had an NFL-record 31 touchdowns in 2006, during his MVP season. That broke the record set the year prior, by Shawn Alexander, who had 28 total touchdowns.
If McCaffrey scores 30 touchdowns, that would absolutely win him MVP. It would be the second-most ever for a non-quarterback. That’s without mentioning that 1,951 rushing yards would be the ninth most in a single season.
***It would also be more touchdowns than Karim Abdul-Jabbar, who led the NFL with 16 touchdowns in 1997. (More on this below).***
But that’s an incredibly lofty goal.
It would require McCaffrey to maintain a perhaps untenable workload over the course of a 17-game season without missing time and in an offense with the likes of Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle.
Being in that high-powered offense with an elite play caller will likely be used against him, whether or not that’s fair.
And this MVP thing is largely narrative.
Even if McCaffrey has a great year, say with 1,500 rushing yards, 15 rushing TDs and 700 receiving yards and 7 receiving TDs (which would be more combined TDs than anyone since Randy Moss in 2003), it would depend on the competition and narrative he faces from quarterbacks. That probably wouldn’t be enough.
At this point, MVP is a de facto quarterback award, with Offensive Player of the Year sometimes given to the best non-quarterback.
In 2020, when Derrick Henry crossed the 2,000-yard mark for the eighth time ever (and had the fifth-highest total ever at 2,027 yards) and rushed for 19 touchdowns, he won OPOY, but wasn’t even an MVP finalist.
The closest a recent non-QB has come to winning MVP was in 2021, when Cooper Kupp had 1,947 receiving yards and 16 TDs. He got one first-place vote.
Right now, McCaffrey’s top quarterback competitors are first-timers. Josh Allen and Tua Tagavailoa are putting up ridiculous numbers in high-powered offenses, but the fact that Tagavailoa lost badly to Allen head-to-head on Sunday will hurt the latter’s case.
If either of those guys come close to 50 touchdowns, that’ll be an extremely strong case, especially as first-timers. A better chance for McCaffrey is if those two and/or Patrick Mahomes are all close statistically.
Mahomes is already a 2-time MVP, and there’s potentially an appetite to give it to someone else, especially if the Chiefs are less dominant than in seasons past. So, if there’s not a clear standout from the QB pack, that will boost McCaffrey’s odds.
It should be mentioned that McCaffrey was third in OPOY voting in 2019, when he had 1,387 rushing yards, 15 rushing TDs, 1,005 receiving yards and 4 receiving TDs. He finished third, somehow, to Michael Thomas, who had 1,729 receiving yards and 9 TDs, over Lamar Jackson, who won MVP unanimously.
That highlights the fact that if there’s another stellar season from a non-quarterback, and McCaffrey isn’t record-breaking, or close to it, that will decimate his chances.
But narrative is everything, and this year, more than any, might be the most fitting for a running back to be in the mix again.
There’s been a strong discourse about the value of the running back position coming into this season, with Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs both holding out for amended contracts, and Jonathan Taylor yet to play this season over a contract dispute. Running backs held something of a summit this offseason to talk about their value.
Their positions have declined because it’s a brutal, injury-prone position, and the draft provides an easy way to find cheap value at the position. Unless you’re an elite receiver, too, there are just myriad other viable options teams will opt for instead of committing to a position that tends not to last very long.
But McCaffrey thriving with a Shanahan — and that old history of great running backs going back to Terrell Davis, who played with McCaffrey’s father in Denver — might spark a little nostalgia in voters if his numbers are close enough to record-breaking, and/or if there’s a muddled mess atop the quarterback hierarchy.
Kyle Shanahan is also a coach scarred by pulling players too early, and he might just keep feeding McCaffrey. He’s averaging 6.2 yards a touch and continues to gain more yards after contact than seems possible. That will probably take its toll at some point, but if it doesn’t, it offers historic statistical potential.
And while having those other weapons might slightly ding McCaffrey on narrative and take potential touches, it tends to open space for him, and could naturally protect him front the brunt of being the only guy.
For now, we should at least enjoy the fact that we’re watching one of the most uniquely talented running backs of all time at his absolute peak, with a coach who seems content to keep feeding him in myriad ways.
***Unnecessary footnote alert
Karim Abdul-Jabbar isn’t exactly relevant to this article, but it is absolutely relevant to me personally.
Someone needs to let people (mostly of the younger generation know that) there was an NFL player named Karim Abdul-Jabbar who led the NFL in touchdowns… and also went to UCLA, wearing the number 33!
The similarities were so glaring that the *other* Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sued Karim Abdul-Jabbar and won. Karim Abdul-Jabbar had changed his name from Sharmon Shah after converting to Islam and being given the name by his Imam. He is now known as Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar.
People need to know about this. He had 27 touchdowns over his first two seasons, then was done by year six. We need a 30-for-30. We got congressional hearings on UFOs, now let’s carve out time for this.
***