Christian McCaffrey gives 49ers instant offensive boost vs. Chiefs

If you wanted to know whether or not Christian McCaffrey was going to make a difference for the 49ers, you only needed a single drive.

Coming into the Kansas City Chiefs’ visit to the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium in Week 7, the storylines quickly shifted near the end of the week whenever the Niners completed a trade for Carolina Panthers star running back Christian McCaffrey. Suddenly the buzz surrounding the game came down to whether or not McCaffrey would play and just how much of an impact he might be able to make within 48 hours of joining the team.

As it turns out, you only needed a single drive to see how much McCaffrey might help this Niners’ offense.

McCaffrey entered the game on the third play of the opening drive of Week 7 for San Francisco and instantly became a factor that the Chiefs’ defense would have to account for. Garoppolo faked a handoff to him on the first play and then missed George Kittle downfield, but McCaffrey would take back-to-back handoffs from there for 10 and then 9 yards on consecutive runs.

Following that, McCaffrey would line out wide as a receiver or go back inside which opened up nice runs for Jeff Wilson or matchups for fellow wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. The Chiefs defense finally caught a break with an incomplete pass after a couple of nice defensive plays and the Niners settled for a field goal by Robbie Gould to take an early three-point lead.