This Man is the next Christian McCaffrey

Jared Hall

Jun 8- 7 min read

No, not 2019 or 2020 Christian McCaffrey, but sophomore, 2018 Christian McCaffrey. McCaffrey was part of a committee in his rookie season, and everyone believed we’d see something similar in the following season. That was not the case. He went off for nearly 2000 all purpose yards and 13 touchdowns, quickly establishing himself amongst the best running backs in the league. That’s quite the expectation for someone to live up to, but I believe everything is lining up for this guy to do what cmac did in 2018. That man is D’Andre Swift.

Last season Swift put up 879 all purpose yards and 10 TDs, similar to the numbers CMC put up in his rookie season (1086 yards and 7 TDs) and is poised to lead that backfield in all categories in 2021. The Lions released Adrian Peterson this offseason, and brought in Jamaal Williams as his replacement. We’ve seen what Williams is and can be in his time in Green Bay, and he’s nothing more than a complimentary piece.

Detroit has no allegiance to him, which means if we see Swift dominate early in the season, we could see him completely take over that backfield. We saw that in 2018 with McCaffrey when the Panthers brought in C.J. Anderson, a guy who some believed would play just as big of a role in that offense as cmac. Swift’s outlook was further improved just yesterday with Kerryon Johnson being cut by the team. Which just further shows the trust the team will have in D’Andre this year.

Goal line carry opportunity

D’Andre Swift has a very high touchdown ceiling with the departure of Peterson. Last season Swift had 9 carries inside the 5 yard line compared to the whopping 12 Peterson had, and he converted 6 of them into touchdowns. There’s no reason D’Andre shouldn’t take a majority of those touches lost from Peterson as we’ve seen how good he is at the goal line. Another plus factor for Swift is the offensive line in Detroit. They added Penei Sewell with the 7th overall pick this offseason, and have an overall very strong oline.

Last year we saw just how efficient Swift was when given more carries, as in the 5 games where he rushed the ball at least 10 times, he averaged 19.4 fantasy points per game and had a yards per carry of over 5. Those are some Christian McCaffrey type numbers right there. He doesn’t even need to take on a workhorse role to be an elite fantasy asset with efficiency like that.

Detroit sucks

The biggest issue we see for Swift is the same issue we saw for CMC in 2018, and that’s just how bad his team is. Detroit has one of, if not the worst wide receiver corps in the league, a new coaching regime and a new quarterback, leaving a lot of question marks for the pieces surrounding Swift. I’d expect to see the Lions trailing in a lot of games, which could hurt his carry total, but significantly upgrade his reception total.

Goff isn’t going to force the ball to his sub par WRs when he’s got swift coming out of the backfield picking up 7–10 yards per reception. Cam Newton had a similar situation with McCaffrey back in 2018, and as we saw, the talent overcame the situation.