Kyle Shanahan’s running back habit has been one of the more maddening threads of the 49ers’ roster-building under Shanahan and John Lynch. The team keeps spending meaningful draft capital at the position, and for years the returns have been thin. But as the 2026 season approaches, San Francisco finally has a couple of young backs who give the idea a little real traction.
The 49ers barely drafted running backs at all in the early years of the regime. In their first four seasons together, they used just one pick on the position, taking Joe Williams in the fourth round in 2017. Williams never played a snap.
That changed starting in 2021, when the 49ers began regularly investing in the backfield. Since then, they have used six draft picks on running backs, with the latest being third-rounder Kaelon Black this year.
The results have mostly been uneven. Elijah Mitchell led the 49ers in rushing as a rookie in 2021, but injuries interrupted his progress after that.
Trey Sermon, also a third-round pick in 2021, lasted only one season. Tyrion Davis-Price, taken in the third round in 2023, also had a short run with the team.
Isaac Guerendo, a fourth-round pick in 2024, showed some promise as a rookie, but his future in San Francisco could still be nearing its end.
Now the spotlight is on Black and 2025 fifth-round pick James, two backs who have shown enough to suggest the 49ers may finally be getting something back from their draft-day investment.
That matters because Christian McCaffrey is now 30, and he has been dealing with “tightness” for much of training camp and preseason. San Francisco needs other backs who can absorb some of that workload, and both Black and James have offered reasons to believe they can help.
Black’s preseason line was modest on the surface - 61 yards on 12 carries, a little over five yards per attempt - but the more encouraging part of his summer was what he showed in pass protection. If a younger back is going to cut into McCaffrey’s snaps, that piece has to be there, and the 49ers’ confidence in Black should be stronger after what he put on tape in preseason.
James took a longer road just to get back on the field. He didn’t get a carry as a rookie until the 49ers’ blowout loss to the Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round of the playoffs. This summer was also interrupted after he fractured his ribs on the second day of training camp, which limited him to one preseason appearance - Thursday’s exhibition finale against the Las Vegas Raiders.
Even in that limited showing, James gave San Francisco something to work with. He showed burst to the second level and good contact balance on a 17-yard run, the biggest piece of his 35 yards on eight carries. He also caught the ball well on a designed screen that went for 20 yards.
“It was good to see him out there,” Shanahan said afterward. “He missed a ton of camp, too, with his injury, and had the same thing last year where he missed all of training camp.
So he only got to play in that one game for us, got a couple carries versus Seattle at the end of the year last year. So I was really excited to watch him tonight, and from what I saw out there live, I thought he ran real hard and ran real well.”
Black may still have the inside track as the No. 2 back right now, but James’ ability to come back from injury and flash as both a runner and a receiver gives him a path onto the field.
The 49ers are not asking either player to replace McCaffrey’s influence. Very few backs in the league can do what he does in both the run game and the passing attack. But with more mileage piling up on a starter whose injury history is already part of the equation, San Francisco needs fresh legs behind him.
Black and James both come with the obvious warning label: they have zero regular-season carries between them. Still, the preseason signs were enough to suggest they can at least help McCaffrey get the rest he needs and keep the offense moving when he comes off the field.
After years of waiting for Shanahan’s running back draft strategy to pay off in a meaningful way, the 49ers may finally have a couple of young players who can make it matter. There’s no guarantee preseason flashes turn into regular-season production, but 2026 at least has the look of the season where that long wait could end.
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