Christian McCaffrey Will Surpass 800 Rushing Yards

Running back Christian McCaffrey was one of the Panthers’ breakout offensive players during his rookie season, compiling 1,306 all-purpose yards in 2017. He finished with a team-high 80 catches for 651 yards while also recording 435 rushing yards, 162 punt return yards and 58 kickoff return yards.

In 2018, McCaffrey will nearly double his rushing yardage by surpassing the 800-yard mark. Now the feature back with Jonathan Stewart gone, the Stanford product will show that he has the ability to take on a bigger workload.

Former Denver Broncos running back C.J. Anderson will likely get the bulk of the short-yardage carries, but McCaffrey will certainly total more rushing attempts than he did last year (117). As a result, he will blow past the 800-yard mark and may even approach a 1,000-yard season.

In the past, I have been of the opinion that McCaffrey might be better off being split out wide on a full-time basis, a la Julian Edelman or Wes Welker before him. But upon further reflection, I think there’s more to his game than just being a one-trick pony.

To me, McCaffrey is a better athlete than either Edelman or Welker. I mean, the guy has made his teammates (including Luke Kuechly) look silly in practice before, and that’s no easy task.

McCaffrey was incredible in the passing game last season, and he’ll show off more of his pass-catching skills in 2018. But he will also chew up a lot of yards on the ground.

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