Christian McCaffrey is heading into the 2026 season with a fresh piece of bulletin-board material, and it comes from a place fantasy players know well: draft season panic.
Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport recently pegged the San Francisco 49ers star as the biggest fantasy football bust for the coming year, a prediction that is sure to irritate both 49ers fans and anyone planning to spend an early pick on him. Davenport’s case centers on age, workload and the kind of history that has followed McCaffrey for years.
McCaffrey is coming off another heavy season, and the warning signs Davenport pointed to are built around the numbers. He noted that the average statistical decline for running backs who eclipse 370 touches in a season since 2016 is about 48 percent, and that the average statistical decline for running backs who have topped 2,000 total yards in a season since 2010 is over 50 percent.
He also pointed to McCaffrey’s own track record. After the 30-year-old back logged 403 touches and 2,392 total yards in 2019, he played in just three games in 2020. After he totaled 2,023 yards on 339 touches in 2023, he appeared in only four games in 2024.
Davenport’s full warning was blunt:
"In terms of average draft position, Christian McCaffrey of the San Francisco 49ers is the third running back off fantasy draft boards and the sixth pick overall.
However, as B.J. Ruddell noted for Touchdown Wire, there are any number of reasons why making the running back your first pick in 2026 could be a major mistake:
The average statistical decline for running backs who eclipse 370 touches in a season since 2016 is about 48 percent. The average statistical decline for running backs who have topped 2,000 total yards in a season since 2010 is over 50 percent.
Then there's the matter of us having seen this movie before with McCaffrey-twice. After the 30-year-old had 403 touches and 2,392 total yards in 2019, he played in just three games in 2020; after he piled up 2,023 total yards on just 339 touches in 2023, he played in four games in 2024.
McCaffrey's workload last year was bigger than in either of those seasons. He's older than in either of those seasons.
You have been warned."
Still, that kind of caution doesn’t mean fantasy managers should suddenly start fading him hard. McCaffrey remains the centerpiece of a San Francisco offense that is not expected to take him off the field often, even if the team is trying to be more careful with his workload.
Second-year running back Jordan James and rookie Kaelon Black could take a few more touches than the reserve backs did a year ago, but that would be tied to the 49ers managing McCaffrey’s load rather than any real drop-off in his game.
That’s the key distinction here. The concern is durability, not ability.
McCaffrey’s career has always carried that risk, and that’s clearly what Davenport is betting on. What he is not betting on is a decline in McCaffrey’s talent.
For fantasy drafters, especially in PPR formats, there still won’t be many running backs worth taking before him. The warning is there, but so is the ceiling. Draft him early and draft him with confidence.
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