Christian McCaffrey was limited to 51 rushing yards in the San Francisco 49ers' 42-10 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night. The running back was the recipient of some punishing blows by Cowboys defenders, raising questions about whether teams are deliberately targeting him.
Is that a concern?
"I don't think teams are trying to hit him in the helmet or trying to face mask him," head coach Kyle Shanahan said via a conference call on Monday. "I think people are desperate on how to bring him down. I mean, you look at the tackle versus Arizona. If that guy didn't do all that stuff, Christian was walking in for a touchdown or carrying him in for a touchdown.
"When you run that hard, guys do whatever they can to get a guy down, and sometimes they grab onto the face mask. The helmets to helmets, those are tight windows. Christian runs really good routes, and our quarterback is putting it in tight areas."
Despite Sunday's modest yardage total, McCaffrey still leads the NFL with 510 rushing yards and seven touchdowns. He managed to find the end zone against the Cowboys on a one-yard run.
At his current pace, McCaffrey is projected to exceed 1,700 rushing yards, and his 678 all-purpose yards, along with his eight total touchdowns, lead the league. Defenders are trying to find ways to slow down McCaffrey and the array of playmakers in the 49ers' offense.
Sometimes, that results in penalties.
"Those guys are committed to trying to stop it, and when that happens, that's really hard to do without doing that," Shanahan said. "So, when you got such a really great player like Christian, who's fearless, guys are doing everything they can to try to stop him, and sometimes when they do that, they get penalties for it."
The good news is that McCaffrey emerged from the game unscathed after enduring a physically demanding battle on the football field.
"Talking to him after the game, he was all right," Shanahan shared. "And then I got no reports from the training staff today. But, yeah, they were bringing it. I mean, they were ready for that game, and they hit hard. They didn't shy away from anything, and it was very similar to how they were when we played them in the playoffs last year.
"And Christian doesn't shy away from anything either. I thought Christian ran so hard in that game, and he tried to bring it on them every chance that he got, and had some really good, tough runs. There's one in particular, I thought we were going to lose about three yards on it. He got five. There's a 3rd-and-2 that I thought was blocked for one, and he ended up getting two and a half.
"So he did some really hard running. But those guys, definitely their safeties and their edge players, they bring it, and that's something we knew going into the game."
