San Francisco 49ers running back was the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year in 2023, and after he struggled through an injury-plagued 2024 campaign, he has made an early case to win that award again in 2025. Coming into the Week Six showdown of 4-1 NFC teams with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, McCaffrey led all NFL players in yards from scrimmage, and his 387 receiving yards – most among NFL running backs - was built on his consistent ability to get yards after the catch (YAC).
The Buccaneers knew this, of course, and it was the first thing they wrote on the whiteboard when it came time to devise a strategy to, if not stop, at least slow McCaffrey down on Sunday.
"Our number-one thing we had on our list to stop was the YAC yards by [number] 23, because he can catch the ball and he can hurt you in so many ways," said Head Coach Todd Bowles. "We knew he was going to catch the checkdowns, but we needed to have him bracketed inside and out. I thought those guys did a great job limiting the yards per catch."
The Buccaneers' defense certainly didn't shut McCaffrey down. He still finished with 101 yards from scrimmage and scored the 49ers only touchdown. But that came on a total of 24 touches, with McCaffrey averaging 4.6 yards per touch, which tied for his lowest mark in a game this season. His success rate on his routes run was 13.3%, his second-lowest mark of the year and his receiving EPA of 1.4 was his third-lowest. McCaffrey did have 42 total yards after the catch, but 19 of those came on a third-and-29 catch in the game's final minute with the Bucs' defense sagging to prevent big plays and run out the clock.
Bowles pointed to linebacker SirVocea Dennis as one of the standouts in the efforts to contain McCaffrey to some degree. Dennis had two of the team's four run "stuffs" against the 49ers star back, which are tackles that stop the ballcarrier for either no gain or a loss of yards. Lavonte David and Vita Vea added one stuff each. Overall, Bowles was pleased with his team's sound tackling and attention to detail, after those areas were a bit of a concern in a shootout win in Seattle in Week Five. The effort paid off in a 30-19 win that left the Buccaneers as the only 5-1 team in the NFC.
"I thought they did a very good job," said Bowles of his tacklers. "They got two plays [where] we fell down that we've got to keep our balance, but fundamentally I thought they were in the right place doing the right things and they competed."
It didn't hurt that the Bucs were able to generate a season-high six sacks of quarterback Mac Jones and they did it without having to rely on blitzes. Tampa Bay did get sacks from the back end of the their defense with David and Dean recording one each, but those plays didn't necessarily constitute blitzes. Some were "simulated blitzes," in which a defensive back or linebacker invades the backfield but someone from the defensive line drops into coverage.
On 46 Jones dropbacks, the Bucs only brought five pass-rushers on 11 of them. The defense was able to generate five of its six sacks and 10 quarterback pressures out of a three or four-man rush. That allowed Bowles to keep more defenders in coverage, which helped with the bracketing of McCaffrey.
"[They were] just determined to get off the ball," said Bowles of his pass-rushers. "It all starts up front for us. If we can get off the ball and you don't have to blitz and you can go with four and they work together, we're a pretty good defense. They did that yesterday and they did a good job."
