There’s a minor problem simmering under the surface of one of the San Francisco 49ers’ biggest offensive successes this season.
Running back Jordan Mason is second in the NFL in rushing yards with 447, but his 91 carries far outpace the rest of the league. He’s on pace for a whopping 387 carries, which would be the most in an NFL season since DeMarco Murray had 392 for the Cowboys in 2014.
The 49ers have to figure out a way to lighten his workload. Perhaps RB Christian McCaffrey returns at some point and the sustainability question for Mason is erased completely. It’s tough to bank on McCaffrey at this point though given that we’re still unsure what his timeline for return even looks like.
It doesn’t appear San Francisco has an immediate solution to take some of the carries off of Mason’s plate. Rookie Isaac Guerendo had one rush in the first two weeks, five in Week 3, but then was back to one in Week 4. Patrick Taylor, the other RB on the roster, hasn’t played an offensive snap.
Maybe it’s a lack of trust for head coach Kyle Shanahan, or just an uncertainty about the production those two could provide in comparison to Mason.
That brings us to our proposed solution: Jauan Jennings.
This isn’t to say Jennings should be in the backfield. However, his emergence as a legitimate receiving weapon on a high volume of targets makes it conceivable that he should be playing more.
The 49ers love to lean on their 21 personnel with two running backs, one tight end and two WRs, and Shanahan has indicated they plan to stick with that as their primary personnel grouping despite Jennings’s emergence as a potential star.
A move to some 11 personnel (one RB, one TE, three WRs) may allow San Francisco to both spell Mason and get Jennings on the field thanks to Deebo Samuel’s versatility.
Using Samuel in the backfield isn’t a novel concept, but it’s one the 49ers have gone away from since his breakout All-Pro campaign in 2021. That year he ran it 59 times. In 2022 his carries dipped to 42, and then to 37 last season. His snaps in the backfield also dropped from 116 in 2021 to just 49 in 2023 per Pro Football Focus.
We’ve already seen the 49ers rely on Samuel as a runner in pinch this season. They fed him eight carries in Week 1 when they found out before the game they wouldn’t have McCaffrey for the opener against the New York Jets. By moving him into the backfield to take some of the workload off of Mason, they can either utilize Samuel’s rushing ability or design ways to get the ball in his hands in space to limit some of the damage done by between-the-tackles carries.
Then when the 49ers want to go back to 21, they can bring in Mason for Samuel and allow Samuel to get some plays off while Jennings stays on the field with WR Brandon Aiyuk. It’s tacking some touches onto Samuel’s plate, but it also opens the door to getting him some in-game rest to keep him healthy over the long-term (or at least until McCaffrey is back), while also ensuring Jennings continues getting an opportunity to be impactful.
