Christian McCaffrey was put into a tough situation last season. A mid-season trade sent the star running back from the Carolina Panthers to the San Francisco 49ers. About 48 hours after arriving in Santa Clara, McCaffrey was suited up for a game against the Kansas City Chiefs.
After that, he spent much of the season playing catchup. He was learning head coach Kyle Shanahan's offense on the fly without the benefit of an offseason of preparation. Still, the running back contributed 1,210 all-purpose yards and 10 total touchdowns through 11 games with his new squad.
This year, he's had plenty of time to learn the intricacies of the offense.
"Yeah, it's much better," McCaffrey admitted Monday on KNBR. "OTAs were great, just to really understand the concepts and really, not just learn the running back position, but the whole offense, and understand timing with what the quarterback sees and what Kyle sees, and getting timing right with the O-line, and [FB Kyle Juszczyk], and the tight ends. So, coming into camp, you're not playing catch up. So it's been great to be able to kind of not just learn the offense, but master it."
McCaffrey remains in awe of his head coach's ability to teach his players and design plays.
"I feel like a football nerd every time I'm in those meetings," McCaffrey said, "and just really grasping exactly how well he understands not just how to run the play offensively, but defensively, and why setting the edge is so important, why running to the ball is so important. And so you start to understand what defenses are being taught and what the play is trying to accomplish.
"And so every step matters. It's not just running the ball and looking with your eyes. There's an aiming point. There's vision that comes with it. There's setting your blocks. There's so many different cues that are on each and every run play, and some of them are a little bit different than others. So it's just been great to be able to not just learn, but rep exactly all the different plays that we're trying to get and then having the different pass plays off of it."
McCaffrey finished last season with an impressive 1,880 all-purpose yards and 13 total touchdowns in his time with the Panthers and 49ers.
You can listen to the entire conversation with McCaffrey below.
