He’s a compact 5-foot-9 3/4 , 208-pound back who led the national champions with 10 rushing touchdowns while posting 1,040 rushing yards while he split time with Roman Hemby, who likewise surpassed the 1,000-barrier with Indiana but was an undrafted free agent signed by the Las Vegas Raiders.
Boasting a 4.45 40-yard dash time, Black could sprinkle some breakaway ability into the 49ers rushing attack playing behind Christian McCaffrey.
McCaffrey had an NFL-high 413 touches last season.
Considering CMC’s lengthy injury history, it’s wise to have depth at the position, but if Shanahan feeds McCaffrey as he has in two of the last seasons, it will be all the more confusing as to why the 49ers spent a third-round pick on Black.
Shanahan admitted there was the belief that Black could fall all the way into the sixth round. He gave a lengthy and transparent explanation as to why the club finally decided to go with Black where they did.
“You got a guy who was not invited into the combine, so what does that mean?” Shanahan said. “Man, maybe it means he’s going in the sixth round. But then you evaluate him, man, I think this is a third-round running back. But then you’re like he’s not going in the sixth round because he wasn’t invited to the combine and that’s what we were guessing. Well, let’s put him as a sleeper in the sixth round, which we do with a lot of guys, and we have a lot of success with those dudes. Then you start to watch the whole draft and the backs and evaluate all the backs together, and this wasn’t as deep of a draft as years past for running backs.
“It only takes one other team to look that way. If someone else has him as their second back, you’re gambling that they’re not going to take him as a second back right away. You think they’re going to try to do the same thing, ‘Hey, everyone is going to look at this as a fifth-round guy, let’s take him in the fourth.’ Well by the time the draft came, we feel everyone is looking at this guys as a fourth-round pick. And so, if everyone is looking at him as a fourth-round pick, man if we want him, I’ll take him 90 in the third. We’ll be alright [with] everyone hating on us and judging that as long as that’s what we feel like.”
That hating is likely rooted in the 49ers’ past fumbles with RB picks.
In 2025, San Francisco took Jordan James in the fifth round. A year earlier it was Isaac Guerendo in the fourth. In 2022 it was Tyrion Davis-Price, also in the third. Just a year before in 2021, the Niners selected two backs: Trey Sermon (third round) and Elijah Mitchell (sixth round).
Currently, only James and Guerendo remain on the roster. James played in three games as a rookie and doesn’t own an NFL carry. Guerendo is a big-bodied presence who showcased big-play ability, but didn’t have a carry last year, either.
The five running backs drafted by the 49ers prior to Black have combined for 492 carries, 2,230 yards and 14 touchdowns. Mitchell was easily the most productive, with his 327 totes for 1,523 yards and nine scores taking up the vast majority of those aforementioned statistics. Much of that production came in an excellent rookie season for Mitchell in which he outperformed Sermon and filled in for an injured Raheem Mostert.
If all is well with McCaffrey, one of the game’s elite talents, this will likely be a forgotten concern for the 49ers faithful once the season rolls around. However, if Black is called on to be a significant contributor, he’ll have the added pressure of curtailing his team’s recent run of bad luck drafting backs.
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