One of the bigger moves the San Francisco 49ers made late in the offseason was adding to their running back depth, trading for Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson in exchange for a 2026 sixth-round pick.<\/p>\n
Robinson, 26, had been a starter for the Commanders since being drafted in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft, posting career-highs in 2024, as he rushed for 799 yards and eight touchdowns on 4.3 yards per carry.<\/p>\n
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Upon arriving in San Francisco, he was immediately anointed the backup to Christian McCaffrey, which added more depth to the running back room, but also solidified the rotation.<\/p>\n
Perhaps no back was more impacted by the trade than 2024 fourth-round pick Isaac Guerendo, whom the 49ers traded up to select in last year\u2019s draft. After San Francisco dealt Jordan Mason to the Minnesota Vikings and drafted running back Jordan James in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, it seemed like Guerendo was primed to be the backup.<\/p>\n
But, he dealt with a couple of injuries this season and also reportedly had fumble issues at times in practice, so it makes sense that the 49ers prioritized going after a running back, especially with their injuries in the room.<\/p>\n
With Robinson taking over the No. 2 role, where does Guerendo stand ahead of the 2025 season?<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t think that he\u2019s gotten lost [in the rotation],\u201d head coach Kyle Shanahan said about Guerendo on Wednesday. \u201cI just think he\u2019s competing. I think he was the third back last year, then a couple guys got hurt and he got an opportunity, and I thought he did well in his opportunity. But that didn\u2019t mean he was the first or second back all of a sudden.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had to come into camp and still compete with guys. He got hurt really early and missed a lot of time to compete. We brought Brian in. We\u2019ve studied him over his career and based off of that we put him ahead of him. That\u2019s how we are starting out and we\u2019ll see how it goes throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, both players will still be behind Christian McCaffrey, who has looked healthy this offseason and should be a big boost to the team\u2019s offense, even with the questions at wide receiver.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust having a player like him, to be the Offensive MVP one year and then really missed a whole next year, was really tough on him, tough on us,\u201d Shanahan said about McCaffrey. \u201cI knew Christian was back just once he told me he was healthy. It\u2019s not like we were thinking he wouldn\u2019t come back from it. You know, you hope that stuff, the arthritis and everything goes away. Which it usually does. He was telling us that early in the offseason, so I felt pretty good about it. Christian\u2019s not a liar. So, I didn\u2019t think he was. Then we saw him early in OTAs, he looked like the guy we\u2019ve always known, and he\u2019s continued that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cChristian\u2019s ready whenever that ball touches him, so he would prefer every play. Hopefully, it comes earlier than later, and it usually does with running backs.\u201d<\/p>\n
In order to keep McCaffrey fresh, though, a rotation will be important at running back. But, it seems both of the backs that San Francisco drafted over the past two years won\u2019t be a featured part of that rotation, at least to start the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the bigger moves the San Francisco 49ers made late in the offseason was adding to their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3011,4124,7,7368,6508,3974,2812,259,6,15,1161,252,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-343166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-brian-robinson","9":"tag-christian-mccaffrey","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-isaac-guerendo","12":"tag-jordan-james","13":"tag-jordan-mason","14":"tag-kyle-shanahan","15":"tag-minnesota-vikings","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-nfl-draft","18":"tag-san-francisco","19":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","20":"tag-washington-commanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115150702956497183","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}