Is Christian McCaffrey Worth the Injury Risk for Fantasy Football in 2025?

Drafting Christian McCaffrey has been a blessing and a curse in fantasy football across his career. The highs feature finishes as the overall RB3 (2018), RB1 (2019), RB2 (2022), and RB1 (2023) in half-PPR formats. The lows include missing double-digit games in three of the past five seasons.

CMC has been about as all-or-nothing as they come, making him difficult to assess in 2025.

However, the cost of drafting him is the lowest we've seen in years. After consistently being a top-three pick from 2019-2024 -- often going first overall -- McCaffrey is coming off the board as a late first-round pick now, owning the 10th average draft position (ADP) in half-PPR leagues, per FantasyPros' consensus ADP data.

Now entering his age-29 campaign, is McCaffrey worth taking another chance on this season? Or are we better off letting someone else assume the risk?

Christian McCaffrey 2024 Season Recap

Make no mistake, CMC's 2024 season was a complete disaster for those who took him, likely as the first overall pick in drafts.

What began as a seemingly minor calf/Achilles issue during the preseason would result in McCaffrey being a surprise inactive in Week 1 -- on Monday Night Football no less -- and then snowball into him being held out all the way through Week 9. After finally debuting in Week 10, he would last only three full games before suffering a PCL injury early in Week 13, putting an end to his forgettable campaign.

Making matters worse, even when active, he wasn't the dominant force of years past, scoring 13.7, 12.6, 6.3, and 7.7 half-PPR points across those four games with zero touchdowns.

Given all of this and prior lost seasons in 2020 and 2021, it's pretty easy to be down on CMC entering this year...

Christian McCaffrey 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

...Yet all we've heard are glowing reports surrounding McCaffrey's health and outlook.

San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak noted that they still "want to get him the ball as much as we can" and that he "looks awesome." More recently, teammate Kyle Juszczyk noted that CMC looks "so healthy" and "so explosive."

Beyond just positive words, McCaffrey's actions have been encouraging, too, as he participated in every phase of OTAs and mandatory minicamp and was one of the few stars to participate in team drills during that time.

It's easy to write off all this as your standard "best shape of my life" type stuff we hear every preseason, but if nothing else, it sounds like McCaffrey will be back at 100% entering this season.

In 2024, even with CMC making his season debut after a lengthy layoff and at questionable health, that didn't stop San Francisco from allowing him to average a 90.7% snap rate, 16.0 carries, and 6.0 targets over his two full games with Brock Purdy. Despite the lack of TDs, he averaged 106.5 scrimmage yards in those outings. His last full game was a blowout loss that Purdy didn't start, yet McCaffrey still logged an 80.9% snap rate.

While we can question whether that was a reckless decision by the coaching staff, it sure suggests that they'll be more than happy to feature him yet again following what should be a much more promising and healthy offseason. CMC should still have one of the most voluminous roles in fantasy football.

As for whether he can hold up for a full season under such a workload, that's an unfortunate worry we can't overlook as he edges closer to 30 years old.

At the same time, you could argue that he isn't much riskier than other top veteran backs like Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry, who are both coming off a boatload of 2024 touches.

Barkley logged a career-high 378 touches last regular season -- plus another 104 in the postseason -- resulting in a whopping 482 in total. History hasn't been kind to running backs the year after such a massive workload, and it's not like Barkley has been immune to injury concerns himself over his career. However, that hasn't stopped drafters from taking him as the RB2 with a 4.0 overall ADP.

Henry is entering his age-31 season, and while he's generally been an iron man outside of an injury-shortened 2021 campaign, the reps are really starting to add up. Including the playoffs, Henry racked up 386 touches in 2024, and prior to that, he led the regular season in carries in four of the past five years. Even King Henry will submit to Father Time at some point, and the cliff might not be far away. His ADP isn't far behind McCaffrey's at 13th overall (RB6).

This isn't to say Barkley and Henry can't be fantastic once again after crushing it as the two best fantasy backs in 2024; it's just acknowledging that CMC is hardly alone when it comes to the pitfalls of drafting an early running back. After all, even a player who hasn't logged a single NFL snap is routinely going inside the top 10 picks.

With that in mind, if you're drafting late in the first round, I'm on board with taking the slight discount on McCaffrey, as an overall RB1 finish could still be the best-case scenario. And if he slips into the early second round, then all the more reason to pounce on a player who was being drafted at the very top just a year ago.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.