Christian McCaffrey

There's no doubt.

And, uh, again, uh, Clint Kubiak has talked about him even going back to the off-season about him being used similar to Christian McCaffrey, and you saw that in full display on Sunday, where he led the team in rushing and receiving, right? Over 100 yards on the ground and then 45 yards and two touchdowns through the air.

So you could see how Clint Kubiak wants to use him.

So yeah, I mean, Ashton Jeanty, he's a guy, especially if Brock Bowers isn't out there, you focus in on where number two is and try to slow him down, and then really, I mean, just kind of point at everyone else and say, "Okay, you guys beat us," right? [laughs] "You guys beat us."

But I should be able to envision that entire thing without knowing all the contents, but I should be able to conceive of that as, like, a table that could potentially sit in front of me.

And then, like, I can snap my finger and say, "I only want to look at Christian McCaffrey's cards." So all the other cards vanish, and now I just have the pi-- So, like, there's the big pile of his Prizm base cards, and there's a pile of his, like, Optic Golds to ten stacked here.

And then I say, "Okay, now I'm going to undertake to rank these based on my preference." And so a very natural ranking sequence would combine something like rarity and aesthetics.

And so I'll start organizing all the cards that are on the table accordingly.

Yeah

... where we really get into the key match-ups here is how do the Miami Dolphins stop the San Francisco 49ers now two-headed run game with the rookie, another rookie, Caleb Black, cutting into to Christian McCaffrey's carries in week one?

Yeah, it's, uh, it's fun to see, especially with San Francisco, where, like, their drafted journey from a team building perspective kind of, it got off the rails with the Trey Lance stuff.

And now you've looked at some of the guys that they've brought in the last couple years, and you're, you're seeing kind of the, the new wave of guys that are growing up.

[laughs]

And so yeah, maybe he ga- he can actually slow it down a little bit a- and use a little bit more v- more vision.

Uh, and s- seriously, it's, you know, a work in progress as all these rookies are, but man, he hits the hole hard and he, and he's fun to watch and a nice, uh, uh, change up from Christian McCaffrey, and involved early.

In fact, carried the ball more than Christian McCaffrey.

Um, any of the-

I see Christian McCaffrey's longest rush, 13 and a half.

I love that.

Christian McCaffrey's explosive, ladies and gentlemen.

Um-

Got more

So this is what we went with.

We'll view our lineup, and this time we went with a $20 four-pick power play.

We saw a couple of micro moments here.

I do wonder, Caleb Douglas, can he stack another quality game after beginning his career with five catches over 90 yards? What about Christian McCaffrey? Because this might be a game script that you say, It gets out of hand.

They're expected to be ahead in the fourth quarter.

Is that something where we see more Kalen Black? Are we going to see a purposeful reduction of Christian McCaffrey's workload when they can in a game that is a little less competitive? Was it maybe only regarding the ramp up and Christian McCaffrey not really dealing with soreness or anything and being limited in some form or fashion to week one? So I think that is of interest here.

We've also got Deshaun Stripling now announced that he's going to miss eight weeks, ten weeks, a huge chunk of the season here, which means Demarcus Robinson lives and is fantasy relevant.

Obviously, Debo Samuel and Mike Evans.

Maybe I take back my comment in the Evans blurb and say that we do try to defend the run from our nickel because of Chris Johnson's adept ability at fitting it up from that position.

Christian McCaffrey.

Dare I say that I think McCaffrey has slowed just maybe a half of a step, but that's from top back in the league to, what, a top 10 back still? Like the others, he's going to take proper tracks as a ball carrier.

He's going to set up the angles and out-leverage you with how he sees it and presses it.

That's the next guy on the list.

Then you get down to Jonathan Taylor and Josh Jacobs and Aaron Jones and Christian McCaffrey, who are all around 7,500.

Christian McCaffrey's been an incredible career, but health-wise, he's not even going to be halfway to Emmitt Smith by the time he's done.

You know who's eighth on the active list? Lamar Jackson.

Lamar Jackson.

You know, and we kind of spoke about it in the preseason preview.

For this 49ers team, the combination of Debo, Mike Evans, George Kittle, McCaffrey, like it's a kind of almost perfect receiver core for Purdy to be working with based on the way they want to play.

And that... was on show.

You know, Debo Samuel looked like the Debo Samuel who left the 49ers a couple years ago, not the one who, I guess, just took a one-year hiatus.

That San Francisco 49ers offensive line pulled out the belt, bent them over the knee, and spanked them for the course of 60 minutes.

The yards before contact for Christian McCaffrey and Kalen Black tell the story.

I mean, it was a clinic up front.

Trent Williams and company putting on a show.