The 49ers on Sunday earned a 22-16 win over the Chargers in running back Elijah Mitchell’s first game back since injuring his knee in the season opener.
There was some speculation that the presence of RB Christian McCaffrey would take a chunk out of Mitchell’s workload. It turns out the workload impact worked the other way. Mitchell led the 49ers with 18 carries while McCaffrey was second with 14 carries to go alongside four catches.
Mitchell was more efficient in his work with 89 yards on 18 totes, while McCaffrey went for 38 yards on his 14 carries. It looked like maybe the 49ers just rode the hot hand Sunday night, but after the game head coach Kyle Shanahan intimated the goal was for the two RBs to split time.
“We were hoping that the carries would come out about even,” Shanahan told reporters after the game. “That kinda was our goal before the game started … but you never know how the game goes. Then at the end there when we were just trying to hammer it down, we were just feeling (Mitchell) so we kept him out there.”
It’ll be interesting to see how the workload between the two RBs ebbs and flows and how much of the work is based on the “hot hand.”
While the team’s ultimate goal is to win games and to have their best players getting the ball, they gave up a lot for McCaffrey to have him playing in a time share where he’s out-touched by another RB. On the other hand, diminishing Mitchell’s workload is going to be hard to justify if he continues running as well as he did against the Chargers.
