SANTA CLARA — After being coached through an entire offseason, 49ers run game coordinator Chris Foerster explained why he believes Christian McCaffrey is set for an even more eye-popping season in 2023.
Foerster already was impressed with McCaffrey and the spark the offense received when the All-Pro was immediately thrown into the mix in Week 7 of the 2022 season. Now the ball carrier has the potential to be an even bigger game-changer.
“They get coached in this offense, what they're supposed to read, what they're supposed to see, how they're supposed to press it,” Foerster said on Thursday. “We went through a whole offseason of him understanding what we're trying to accomplish with this play, when we toss him the ball in this way, when we hand him the ball, how he’s used to set up the blocks, what we're thinking upfront.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
"He didn't know those things. Other places he'd been, hadn't really talked much about it from my understanding.”
McCaffrey repeatedly has shared how important it has been for him to have more time in Kyle Shanahan’s system and work with running backs coach Bobby Turner. With all of the offseason reps the Stanford product has gotten, the more comfortable he has become.
“It’s not something that you just learn in one day,” McCaffrey said. “Coach Turner always says repetition and space reps. So the more reps you can get at it, the more you can see it, the more you can understand what exactly you’re trying to do on the play, the better the feel you can have for it.”
Foerster went into even further detail about how being patient as a back in the 49ers system is vital to explosive plays. Hitting the holes too early can be detrimental. Now with a better understanding of the scheme, what the coach has seen from McCaffrey leading up to the season opener has been impressive.
San Francisco 49ers
Find the latest San Francisco 49ers news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.
“Him being able to understand how things happen, it's with some of the plays that Kyle’s designed through the years, there’s some decent-sized holes,” Foerster said. “They just kind of show up and it's by design.
“When you're a runner that hasn't seen that, it's like ‘You don't want me to run there right now?’ No, you got to wait and then you can run there because there's other things that have to happen to play. Little things like that happen to him throughout. This year it's not like that, man.”
McCaffrey who is known for his work ethic and not making the same mistake more than once, has been running with intention throughout training camp. The value of getting offseason reps has helped him but being patient, waiting for holes to appear on the line of scrimmage, has been a challenge.
“I think it’s hard,” McCaffrey said. “As soon as you do it wrong, you realize you can make it easier on yourself the next time, and don’t mess up more than once. Definitely, that’s why the preparation really matters, and going over exactly the blocking scheme on each specific play and why that’s so important.”
Foerster continually has noticed the work ethic of his veteran back and is excited to see what he will be able to do on game day. Just McCaffrey’s presence alone has raised the standards of what is expected of all the running backs on the team.
“He's so on it and still learning and still wanting to be better,” Foerster said. “He is just so hard on himself in a positive way that he's always wanting to make sure he gets it exactly right. And that trickles down now to all the rest of the backs and he's just a great guy to have on the team.
“He has made huge strides, as much as a guy as talented as Christian can make. He's made huge strides this year.”
Download and follow the 49ers Talk Podcast
