A 67-Spot Jump, Nine Years After the Combine
McCaffrey entered the 2026 NFL Top 100 countdown at No. 73 the year before. He exited it at No. 6, the highest of any running back and one of only five players from the entire San Francisco 49ers roster to make the list, joining Trent Williams (No. 40), George Kittle (No. 46), Fred Warner (No. 54), and Brock Purdy (No. 85).
The jump followed a 2025 season where McCaffrey started all 17 games, carried the ball 311 times for 1,202 yards, and led all NFL running backs in receiving with 102 catches for 924 yards. His 2,126 total scrimmage yards were the second-most in the league, and it was the third time in his career he cleared 2,000 yards from scrimmage in a season. The performance earned him First-Team All-Pro honors and the NFL's 2025 Comeback Player of the Year award, coming off an injury-shortened 2024.
What makes the ranking interesting from a testing standpoint is that McCaffrey's 2025 rushing efficiency was among the worst of his career — 3.9 yards per carry, his second-lowest mark in any season he played 10-plus games. His value to the 49ers came almost entirely from volume, receiving work, and durability, not explosiveness. That's a useful reminder that athletic testing captures potential, not the full picture of what makes a player valuable at the NFL level.
McCaffrey's 2017 Combine Numbers
McCaffrey measured in at 5'11", 202 pounds for the 2017 NFL Scouting Combine — light for the running back position even at the time. His testing day put those size concerns to rest as an athleticism question, if not as a workhorse-durability one:
| Drill | Result | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 40-Yard Dash | 4.48s | Fastest of the top-4 RB class (Fournette, Cook, Kamara) |
| Vertical Jump | 37.5" | 2nd-best among RBs at the 2017 combine |
| Broad Jump | 10'1" | Solid, not elite, for the position |
| 3-Cone Drill | 6.57s | 2nd-fastest by an RB since 2006 |
| 20-Yard Shuttle | 4.22s | Above-average agility mark |
| Bench Press | 10 reps | 2nd-fewest among RBs that year |
The bench press was the outlier, and it barely mattered. McCaffrey's Relative Athletic Score sits at 8.52 out of 10 — strong, but not among the true elite testers at the position, since his weight (a 3.12 score) and bench numbers dragged down an otherwise excellent profile. His agility scores were the standout: a 9.97 for the three-cone and 8.49 for the vertical jump.
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McCaffrey's combine profile was never the story — his tape and receiving production were. That gap between "very good athlete" and "generational receiving back" is exactly why teams weight game film more heavily than testing numbers for players who show unique skill sets on tape. A 4.48 40 and a 37.5-inch vertical would get most running backs drafted; they don't explain 7,589 career rushing yards, 5,390 receiving yards, and 98 total touchdowns across nine NFL seasons.
What his agility numbers did predict accurately: his three-cone and shuttle times, both elite for the position, hinted at the short-area quickness and route-running ability that made him one of the best pass-catching backs of his generation. Straight-line speed and jumping ability are only part of what NFL running back evaluation actually measures.
How He Compares to Today's Combine Class
Measured against this year's incoming rookies, McCaffrey's numbers read as solidly above-average rather than elite. Arkansas running back Mike Washington Jr. ran a 4.33 at the 2026 combine — 15 hundredths faster than McCaffrey's 4.48 nine years earlier — and posted a 99th-percentile weight-adjusted 40 time for the position. The overall running back testing bar has risen across the league, even as McCaffrey's on-field production has aged remarkably well relative to his athletic scores.
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