One of the marquee plays in the 49ers’ 31-14 win over the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday at SoFi Stadium was the touchdown pass from Christian McCaffrey to Brandon Aiyuk.
Down 7-0 to the Rams, McCaffrey received the pass from Jimmy Garoppolo behind the line of scrimmage, and rather than run, the former Carolina Panthers running back opted to throw, where he found an open Aiyuk for the touchdown.
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The play helped set the tone for the 17-point win over their NFC West rival. However, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan admitted that the play nearly didn’t happen since he almost called a time out.
“The key is when you catch it, you gotta tuck it away and look like you’re running,” Shanahan told MMQB’s Albert Breer from the 49ers’ team plane on the tarmac at LAX late Sunday afternoon.
“There actually was a Cover 2 look, so I almost called a timeout before the play because that’s not the best look for it. But if you have a guy who’s a threat to run with it? He ran that play against them I’d say about three or four times when he played them two weeks ago when he was with Carolina, and he’s tough to tackle.”
Additionally, Shanahan complimented McCaffrey’s ability to draw in the defense, who needed to react to the possibility that he might run, and then unleash the throw to secure the 49ers’ first touchdown of the game.
“So when you throw the balls like those guys quickly, no matter how deep the people are, they better get up there to tackle him, because he’s a threat,” Shanahan added.
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“And then he had the poise to pull it back and throw it. It was real similar to the play that we did last year when we handed it off to Deebo [Samuel], and they came up pretty hard, and he threw it to Jauan Jennings.”
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The 49ers will continue to open the playbook for McCaffrey as they’ll have the bye week to prepare for their matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers on Nov. 13 at Levi’s Stadium.