The San Francisco 49ers are hoping to rebound from a miserable 2024 that saw the team finish 6-11, finish in last place in the NFC West and watch the playoffs from home.
After a promising group of young talent from the NFL Draft in Green Bay earlier this month, there is hope. But there's also hope that star running back Christian McCaffrey can return from his two injuries that caused him to miss 13 games last season.
Teams sometimes work their stars returning from injuries back into the offense slowly. But don't expect that to be the case with McCaffrey. Offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said they're not worried about overworking him next season.
“You guys saw in 2023 how important he is to what we want to be as an offense," Kubiak said. "He’s an elite player and we're going to do everything we can to get him the ball as much as we can. And yeah, his health is really important. He’s one of our central players on offense. We want to hand him the ball, we want to throw him the ball, how he changes defenses when he's on the field for how they have to play us in certain coverages, right?
"Putting more guys in the box to stop the run, it has an effect on the opponents. And so, Christian's doing great. He looks awesome and we're pumped up that he's out there working every day. So I look forward to getting him back out there full time.”
Kubiak even continued that the staff doesn't think they have to do anything to protect the eight-year veteran from other injuries on the field next season.
"You're always cognizant of the reps you're putting on guys, especially in practice, when we do that with Christian all the time, we monitor his reps and you have to be smart when you're in games," Kubiak continued. "You have to be cognizant of how much they're out there.
