Last night, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network and Adam Schefter of ESPN reported that new San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey is expected to play against the Kansas City Chiefs this afternoon. The Panthers traded McCaffrey to the 49ers on Thursday night, and the running back arrived in Santa Clara just in time to participate in the later part of Friday's practice.
"The 49ers have a package of plays in their gameplan for McCaffrey," Schefter tweeted.
The NFL insider later went on air and added, "He's picked up things faster than they thought he would. It's not a huge package of plays, but they do have plays in there for him. He is going to be out there tomorrow. He is going to be playing."
Jay Glazer of FOX Sports reports that the 49ers plan to give McCaffrey about 20 snaps against the Chiefs, with that number possibly increasing depending on how the game progresses.
"Glazer explained that McCaffrey has watched all Friday game-planning meetings from the current season, thanks to the fact that coach Kyle Shanahan records all meetings," wrote Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
McCaffrey watching all of the game-planning meetings from this season while trying to learn the language of the 49ers playbook is impressive, considering the short amount of time the running back had to prepare.
"You can process a lot in two days, and figure out a lot in a short amount of time, and hopefully be ready to go," McCaffrey said on Friday. "... It's just my job to learn as much as humanly possible in the next two days and get ready to play a football game."
McCaffrey added, "I'm trying to get the playbook down. That's the only thing I'm focused on. Going to help this team win a lot of football games, hopefully. That's where my mind is."
