Will Christian McCaffrey dominate for fantasy managers again?
Yahoo Fantasy's Josh Norris and Hayden Winks examine the concerns for San Francisco's workhorse running back after a heavy workload last season. Check out the full conversation on "Yahoo Fantasy Football with Josh and Hayden" - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube or wherever you listen .
Video Transcript
Coming off 450 touches, you know how this can go sideways here.
It's rare to get that many touches.
When running backs get that many touches, they're injured often the next season.
Yep.
That said, he easily finishes the RB1 overall in expected points at 23 per game, RB1 overall in actual fantasy points as well.
If he stays healthy, he's right in the mix with Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs, and I'm trying to find upside weeks.
Even if you get him for 13, 14 weeks, like scrape, scrape by the last couple weeks here, he just gives you such a clear advantage when he's out there.
Kyle Shanahan wants to scale his, his workload back a little bit.
They always say that.
I think they're gonna do it at times this year, but we're dropping receivers like flies with Ricky Pearsall, George Kittle coming off- And running backs of an injury.
And running backs with, with broken ribs and whatnot.
It's like we're gonna come to the season again, he's gonna be the only guy that's healthy.
So I get he can get injured and this could look stupid.
And at the same time, like last year, you can draft him and you can win your fantasy league.
Christian McCaffrey's my number six overall player.
Hey, and I mean, it was my home run swing on this episode last year where I called out CMC as my fourth overall player- Mm-hmm and he finishes the running back one with 22 points per game.
I'm not doing that this year, but it's not because I don't want to or, or don't believe in him.
I, I think I just kind of believe in the other players that we talked about here at the front.
I mean, no player owns more of their team touches than CMC did last year.
47%.
Like 47% of the time he touched the football.
Now, as you said, it's kind of twofold, right?
Would CMC's season have been even better if everyone was healthier, right?
Better team, more points scored, better blocking.
I think there is a case for that.
Or did he actually benefit from everyone being hurt?
You know, he was force-fed the ball despite lacking juice because the underlying metrics were really poor.
I mean, he was 37th in rate of runs to gain 10 or more yards, 32nd on runs that got stuffed at the line of scrimmage that failed to gain ru- yards, 36 in yards after contact per rush.
And as you said, like the last three backs that hit 450 touches from Arian Foster to Mark Ingram to the season prior, Saquon Barkley, their production and their fantasy appeal dropped significantly the next year.
So I love CMC.
I don't want him to hit this cliff, but you know, those guys were 26 and 27 years old that I just shouted out, and CMC is entering his age 30 season right now.
Yeah.
He's a lot riskier this year than he was the previous season, which is ironic- Yep because he was coming off of injury and you, you really just want to be avoiding him when he comes off that amount of touches.
I just can't ignore the upside.
We're trying to come in first and second last time, uh- Yep I checked in fantasy football.
Like you just gotta deal with the risk.
