Christian McCaffrey Out For Season With Injury: Fantasy Football Rapid Reaction (2021)

We’re back to provide the rapid reaction to the news that consensus 2021 first-overall pick Christian McCaffrey is going to miss the remainder of the season after the Carolina Panthers placed him on IR.

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The Details of Christian McCaffrey‘s Injury

Christian McCaffrey placed on IR, out for season

The Panthers placed RB Christian McCaffrey (ankle) on IR, ruling him out for the remainder of the 2021 season.

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What is the impact of Christian McCaffrey‘s injury?

Our analysts share how the injury impacts McCaffrey and the Panthers:

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Dan Harris’s take:

The unfortunate season-ending injury to Christian McCaffrey opens up the door for Chuba Hubbard and Ameer Abdullah. With McCaffrey out earlier in the season, Hubbard dominated the running back touches, averaging more than 20 per game. But we saw Abdullah get far more heavily involved on Sunday against the Dolphins. More than likely, that was due to the extremely negative game script, but he has looked good in passing down work when given the opportunity. I expect him to take the third-down role and cut into the touches Hubbard was seeing without McCaffrey earlier in the year. That makes Hubbard a low-end RB2 for me going forward (currently 20th in my ROS rankings) and Abdullah a desperation flex play most weeks in PPR leagues.

Pat Fitzmaurice’s take:

It would be a stretch to say that the Christian McCaffrey injury makes Chuba Hubbard a “league winner” (I despise that term, by the way), but it obviously makes Hubbard a valuable asset. When the Panthers come out of their Week 13 bye, Hubbard will draw a favorable matchup against the Falcons in Week 14, but then he faces the Bills, Buccaneers, and Saints to close the fantasy season — three of the stingiest run defenses in the league. And Hubbard won’t have the backfield all to himself. Ameer Abdullah will take some of the load as well, giving Abdullah at least a small degree of fantasy relevance for the first time since 2017.

As for Christian McCaffrey himself, this latest season-ending injury will take him out of the running to be pick 1.01 in 2022 fantasy drafts, although he’s still going to be a first-rounder. We’re also going to see a reassessment of his dynasty value, and I suspect his dynasty stakeholders will be much more willing to consider including him in deals.

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