The San Francisco 49ers are inactive for Week 14 and will assuredly enjoy a late-season bye as they prepare for their final four regular-season games ahead of the playoffs.
And few players probably need more of a break than All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey, whose 322 touches over 13 games lead the NFL but also create fair concerns about wear and tear.
Fortunately, CMC has stayed healthy this season. In doing so, he's put himself into one of the rarest companies in league history: the 1,000/1,000 club.
Netting 1,000 yards on the ground and another 1,000 yards through the air is a rare feat, accomplished only three prior times in NFL history, once by McCaffrey when he was with the Carolina Panthers back in 2019, but also by Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk and Niners legend Roger Craig, the first to achieve the feat.
Currently, McCaffrey boasts 849 rush yards and 806 receiving yards, meaning it's still feasible he falls short of this rare achievement.
However, San Francisco's next opponent, the Tennessee Titans, affords CMC a chance to get oh-so close to a return to the 1,000/1,000 club.
Christian McCaffrey is poised for a massive game against lowly Titans
The one-win Titans are bad. There's no other way around it.
Yet McCaffrey and head coach Kyle Shanahan have to be viewing this Week 15 showdown at Levi's Stadium as a golden opportunity to get the All-Pro as close to the achievement as possible. Perhaps even reach it, given how shoddy Tennessee's defense is.
In that regard, the Titans are allowing an average of 4.6 yards per carry this season, good for 25th in the league, meaning McCaffrey is poised to improve his notably low average of 3.6 yards per rush.
Likewise, through the air, Tennessee is surrendering an average of 6.7 yards per pass attempt, fifth worst over the first 13 weeks. And while the Titans have only given up 250 yards receiving to opposing running backs on the year, the 49ers' use of McCaffrey as an all-purpose weapon still opens the door to him having a big game.
McCaffrey needs 151 rush yards to reach 1,000 on the season, and 194 receiving yards would crest 1,000 through the air, too.
While netting both of those in one game against the Titans would be astounding beyond belief, the context at least affords the likelihood of getting awfully close to the record with three games left to play.