The Seattle Seahawks enter the season in an awkward position. While they're the defending Super Bowl champions, they're being somewhat overlooked because of their quiet offseason and their tough division.
Granted, the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers are tough rivals. However, the Seahawks beat them both twice in three tries last season, looking especially dominant against Kyle Shanahan's team.
As a result, the 49ers made a flurry of moves this offseason, but it looks like all their newcomers have already missed time with ailments. To add insult to injury — literally — the Christian McCaffrey experience is on full display in the Bay Area, as he's already skipping practice.
The Seattle Seahawks shouldn't worry about the 49ers
The 49ers just gave their superstar running back the day off with "tightness." While it doesn't sound serious, McCaffrey has missed extensive time due to countless injuries throughout his nine-year career, and he won't get any healthier as he gets older.
McCaffrey has logged 172 carries for 904 yards and has scored 8 touchdowns in 10 games vs. the Seahawks, including the playoffs, averaging a whopping 5.3 yards per carry with five 100-rushing-yard games. However, he's run for 79, 69, 23, and 35 yards and hasn't rushed for a score since Mike Macdonald took over.
He also has 453 receiving yards (45.3 receiving yards per game) and two touchdowns vs. the Seahawks, though, again, Macdonald's defensive game plans have bottled him to 27, 73, 34, and 49 receiving yards with zero touchdowns.
The Seahawks' ability to contain McCaffrey has taken a huge toll on the 49ers' offensive efficiency against them. In fact, they have the league's worst EPA per play against the Seahawks (-0.118), even though they have the fifth-best against everyone else (0.1).
We're talking about a team that averaged 25.7 points per game last season, but couldn't even crack 20 points in any of their three tries vs. the Seahawks. Even worse, they went eight consecutive quarters without scoring a single touchdown.
Of course, it takes much more than a single player to lead a team, but it looks like the 49ers simply won't learn from their previous mistakes. They continue to bank all their hopes on brittle and aging players who have proved time and again that they can't be trusted to stay on the field.
Besides McCaffrey, they'll have to keep close tabs on Nick Bosa, Trent Williams, George Kittle, Mike Evans, and even Brock Purdy, just to name a few. Their string of injuries is simply unsustainable, and given how things have unfolded in training camp, it wouldn't be much of a surprise to see several of them miss their Week 5 date with the defending champions.
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