In four of the last seven seasons Christian McCaffrey has finished as the RB1, RB2 or RB3 in fantasy football, regardless of scoring format (with two finishes as the RB1, by a substantial margin each time). In the other three seasons during that stretch, he has played a total of 14 games.
So looking toward the 2025 season, it’s easy to channel one of Clint Eastwood’s most famous characters (“You gotta ask yourself one question, do I feel lucky?”) when thinking about McCaffrey. The investment in re-draft leagues this year won’t be as consequential, as in the No. 1 overall pick, so the price of an injury-forced disappointment also won’t be as drastic.
There’s a real-life case for the Niners to go all-in on a rebuild and trade McCaffrey. Fantasy managers in a specific kind of league could consider trading him, though in that case it may not have to be an acknowledgement of not being able to win anything this year.
Dynasty fantasy managers must heed advice on Christian McCaffrey
Skyler Carlin of FanDuel recently named four players to sell in dynasty fantasy leagues before the 2025 NFL Draft.
Assuming a ranked order, McCaffrey was No. 1 (presumably easily):
“Recommending to part ways with Christian McCaffrey seems like a crazy idea, but there are multiple reasons why I’d be looking to move on from the San Francisco 49ers’ All-Pro running back this offseason. Even though we just witnessed Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley make a case for veteran running backs to be respected more in fantasy football, McCaffrey is still coming off a season-ending PCL injury in 2024, and he dealt with Achilles tendonitis that kept him sidelined until Week 10 of last season.
“There are a ton of red flags surrounding McCaffrey, but there could be people out there who still will give up a decent chunk of change for the aging back due to his name value and the belief he can still be a focal point of the 49ers’ offense. While McCaffrey has been one of the most productive running backs in fantasy football history, this seems like a good time to move on from him as he enters the latter stages of his career.”
Even while professing that McCaffrey was healthy after last year’s injury woes, head coach Kyle Shanahan openly acknowledged the strong likelihood the 49ers will draft a running back. How much of a threat that incoming rookie will be to what has been McCaffrey’s typical workload (when healthy) is to be determined. But he’ll turn age 29 in June, so some reduction is looming.
The question for dynasty managers who have McCaffrey becomes this then: What could I get for him in a trade?
Luckily, Keep, Trade, Cut has a dynasty trade calculator that can help, using Superflex and 0.5-point PPR as the base setting. Users can add three categories of “tight end premium”, depending how your league is (as in bonus points for tight ends; ex-1.5 points per catch), to the equation. In this case, let’s go with non-tight end premium to see what works out as a fair trade.
KTC’s trade calculator gives McCaffrey a value of 4,651 points. The first assets that would even a trade are a mid-first round pick in 2026 (4,775 points) and pick 1.10 in 2025 (4,761 points). The top three players of comparable value are Zay Flowers (4,749 points), incoming rookie tight end Tyler Warren (4,748 points) and Josh Jacobs (4,714 points). Further down, closer to McCaffrey’s exact value, there’s Dak Prescott, Jaylen Waddle, Chris Olave, a late first-round pick in 2025 and a mid first-round pick in 2027.
There’s a point where McCaffrey might be a risk worth taking in re-draft leagues this year, based on the upside he has to finish as the RB1. But now looks like the time for his dynasty managers to sell, lest they get stuck with an already-distressed asset that’s unlikely to gain value from here.
