CMC Observation

[Jakob]

I'll be going over the film shortly to get a better idea of how many times it happened, but I noticed there was a handful of snaps where the 49ers defense doubled or even triple teamed McCaffrey. Hell, even a few instances where half the defense had an eye on him. My question is, was this the 49ers being overly cautious of CMC or is this something we can expect most teams to do? What were your observations? I can't imagine how dynamic the offense could be if this is the treatment CMC will be given.

[jfra78]

I think boulware told them we will be using a lot of CMC

[Saca312]

49ers were definitely keying in on him after the Panthers started force feeding CMC a ton. I wrote a bit on that here and how much he opened up plays for others.

http://www.carolinahuddle.com/2017/09/11/carolina-panthers-christian-mccaffrey-presence/

I doubt it'll be that bad when we go against future opponents, but what stands out is how fast opponents recognized CMC as a threat. We won't see it to the extreme the 49ers showed, but we should see defenses being weary.

 

[MechaZain]

If I was an opposing coach my takeaway from week 1 is honing in on him may be more trouble than it's worth. I expect others (as soon as Buffalo, really) to test him and take a "if he beats us he beats us" approach rather than revolve the focus around him. From there it'll be up to CMC to capitalize on it, and if he makes them pay we'll be sitting pretty.

 

 

[Jakob]

2 minutes ago, MechaZain said:

If I was an opposing coach my takeaway from week 1 is honing in on him may be more trouble than it's worth. I expect others (as soon as Buffalo, really) to test him and take a "if he beats us he beats us" approach rather than revolve the focus around him. From there it'll be up to CMC to capitalize on it, and if he makes them pay we'll be sitting pretty.

 

 

2

That's what I'm hoping McD does. If he can get 85 yards with that much attention, I'd love to see what he can do with more 1v1 situations.

[Vagrant]

Someone needs to point out to him that hardly anything good happens when he starts going sideways. The play calling adjusted a bit to have him running more directly up the middle and it looked good on him. He's just beating pulling guards around the corner on sweeps and tosses. He needs to be more instinctive and just hit those holes. It reminds me of when DeAngelo first came into the league doing the same thing before he realized that 3 yards running up the back of a lineman and falling forward was better than jump cutting behind the line waiting for something to open up for a loss of a yard. Not every touch is going to be a home run. 

[ecu88]

2 hours ago, Jakob said:

That's what I'm hoping McD does. If he can get 85 yards with that much attention, I'd love to see what he can do with more 1v1 situations.

With a little math. CMC had 3 ppl shadow him most of the game = 85 yds. Iso CMC most of the game would prob have been 255 yds. 

[Hogmolliesmaht]

 It actually looked like they game planned to stop CMC. I guess they all saw the TC videos of him making TD and Keuchly look silly in the open field.

[PhillyB]

actually a good plan by shula to use him early and often. the defense was spying him all game. olsen should have a thousand yards easy if that keeps up

[Wundrbread33]

He made the wrong cut on multiple occasions, danced too much, and overran his blocking...

 

All these point to first game jitters. He will settle down and be a stud. CMC's impact would have been more easily seen if Cam wasn't rusty and missing open receivers (who were open largely because of the CMC effect).

[top dawg]

CMC is putting the fear in them, and he hasn't even gotten started good (yeah, it's grammatically incorrect, but it's what I mean). Just think what will happen when he breaks a few. He'll have that Mike Tyson psychological effect before he faces these guys. 

Seriously, even the good defenses will put a lot of energy into making sure that he doesn't beat them by himself.

If Samuel can get on the field and play as advertised, defenses will have to pick their poison between him, CMC, Benjamin, Cam and Olsen.

[outlaw4]

Having an offensive player other than Cam and Olsen merit that much attention is always a good thing. Cam's rustiness and our tendency to start the season slow means that we can't take full advantage just yet.

Certainly saw more dancing from CMC than expected although I think that's partly because he got used to our run blocking during the preseason. It looked great then but it was more of a grind first game out. The upside is that our last drive of the game started at our 1 with 8:48 left. All runs starting with Stewart and CMC converting on third down twice. 49ers never saw the ball again. That's good teamwork.

[Hoenheim]

For those who think he had a bad game . If McCaffrey gets the same exact rush and rec yards every game he'll end up with : 

80 receptions 
608 receiving yards 

208 carries
752 rushing yards

1360 yards total 
 

Thats not fuging bad .  According to last year that would have put him in the top 20 (#15 ahead of mike evans, and Antonio brown, and just below Mark Engram, Spencer, Ware, OBJ, and less than 100 yards away from Julio Jones and Melvin Gordon. 

David Johnson	RB	ARI	2118	6157	34.4%	16	34.4%
3	Ezekiel Elliott	RB	DAL	1994	6195	32.2%	15	34.3%
1	Le'Veon Bell	RB	PIT	1884	6137	30.7%	12	40.9%
7	DeMarco Murray	RB	TEN	1664	5907	28.2%	16	28.2%
5	LeSean McCoy	RB	BUF	1623	5880	27.6%	15	29.4%
6	Jordan Howard	RB	CHI	1611	5874	27.4%	15	29.3%
23	Devonta Freeman	RB	ATL	1541	6888	22.4%	16	22.4%
16	T.Y. Hilton	WR	IND	1448	6119	23.7%	16	23.7%
9	Jay Ajayi	RB	MIA	1423	5540	25.7%	15	27.4%
4	Melvin Gordon	RB	SDG	1416	5896	24%	13	29.6%
19	Julio Jones	WR	ATL	1409	6888	20.5%	14	23.4%
14	Odell Beckham	WR	NYG	1376	5439	25.3%	16	25.3%
8	Spencer Ware	FB	KAN	1368	5662	24.2%	14	27.6%
33	Mark Ingram	RB	NOR	1362	7000	19.5%	16	19.5%
20	Mike Evans	WR	TAM	1321	5781	22.9%	16	22.9%
24	Frank Gore	RB	IND	1302	6119	21.3%	16	21.3%
22	Antonio Brown	WR	PIT	1293	6137