SF 49ers should start Jeff Wilson at running back in 2021

Jeff Wilson Jr. might not be the SF 49ers’ best running back. But in 2021, he should end up being the starter over Raheem Mostert.

Nope. Not a crazy SF 49ers hot take here or some positive overreaction to the Niners inking restricted free-agent running back Jeff Wilson Jr. to a one-year deal earlier this week.

But, yup. San Francisco should name Wilson its starting running back in 2021.

To be clear, Wilson isn’t the SF 49ers’ best running back on the assumed roster this upcoming season. No, that accolade still goes to his positional teammate, Raheem Mostert, even though Wilson ended up leading the team in rushing in 2020 with 600 rushing yards and 10 total touchdowns.

Mostert, meanwhile, had 521 rush yards and three net touchdowns, although injuries had a lot to do with that.

It’s all but guaranteed free-agent running backs Tevin Coleman and Jerick McKinnon are gone in 2021, essentially leaving Mostert, Wilson and JaMycal Hasty as the legitimate options to fill out the depth chart once the regular season kicks off. Hasty is still a developmental scatback, and those are nice. But the primary carries will likely fall between the other two.

When it comes to being named the starter, however, Wilson should get the nod.

It makes sense for SF 49ers to start Jeff Wilson over Raheem Mostert

Again, Wilson isn’t a superior runner over Mostert. Remember, Mostert held the league’s top-two spots for the fastest ball-carrier in 2020, according to Next Gen Stats. But Next Gen Stats also reveals something else awfully telling.

Wilson faced eight-plus defenders in the box a whopping 32.5 percent of carries last season, which was by far most on San Francisco’s roster and eighth most among all NFL qualifiers.

Despite opposing defenses trying to stop him at or close to the line of scrimmage, Wilson still managed to average 4.8 yards per carry. That’s awfully impressive considering Mostert averaged 5 yards per carry but faced eight-man boxes just 18.3 percent of the time.

But the reason why Wilson should start doesn’t just fall upon the stats.

In head coach Kyle Shanahan’s offense, the starting running back isn’t exactly a lofty accolade anyway. Many teams, including the SF 49ers, feature the running-back-by-committee approach, and Shanahan has relied heavily on this during his Niners tenure. For the bulk of 2019 when San Francisco’s running back room was relatively healthy, Coleman would often get the start despite not being the team’s best pure rusher.

Why?

Well, Shanahan would often use Coleman to test out opposing defense’s weaknesses, seeing which defenders bit on plays, who was overcommitting, who had trouble tackling and so on. As the game wore on and those defenses grew tired, Mostert’s fresh legs (particularly late in the year and into the playoffs) would exploit what Shanahan had learned.

Injuries to the bulk of the SF 49ers running backs in 2020 prevented this approach from being overly successful last year, although Wilson shouldered the load nicely twice, boasting two 100-plus yard games on the ground (Weeks 7 and 16 when he was the shoo-in starter).

Assuming the Niners get a relatively clean slate of health in 2021, they can expect to revert back to the 2019 approach, only this time with Wilson starting over Coleman, then giving way to Mostert.

It’s especially important because teams are likely to bulk up against Shanahan’s ground game early again this upcoming season. Unless San Francisco gets a vast improvement at quarterback, which is always a possibility, defenses are going to force its offense to throw the ball by loading the box.

Wilson helps negate that to a large extent, and the stats back it up.