Even when the Jets weren’t opening their season in San Francisco on Monday evening, the comparability could be pure.
Christian McCaffrey is the bar for working backs within the NFL.
Breece Corridor, simply two seasons into his profession, has developed a profile that appears so much just like the youthful model of the 49ers celebrity.
That the 2 will probably be on opposing sidelines Monday, properly, that simply makes it too straightforward.
“Actually to me, I haven’t actually achieved something on this league but,” Corridor stated Tuesday. “The hype and all that stuff’s there, however for me, it’s simply having a regular for myself. Each time I step out on the sector, I wish to be one of the best participant on the market. I need each staff to know who No. 20 is.”
He received’t get many higher alternatives than Week 1 in prime time towards final 12 months’s NFC champs and the participant who led the league in dashing yards.
Corridor stated he’s watched McCaffrey since center faculty.
A Nice Plains child — born in Omaha, highschool in Wichita, faculty at Iowa State — Corridor stated that regardless of household ties to the Niners, he by no means had a favourite NFL staff rising up, and recalled McCaffrey’s starring Rose Bowl efficiency towards Iowa as Stanford rolled over the Hawkeyes.
In an effort to assist get Quincy Williams prepared for the matchup, Corridor additionally has labored with the linebacker after practices, doing his greatest impression of McCaffrey.
“The primary half, it’s extra like releases,” Williams stated. “So actually simply getting off the road — ‘What do you see once you get this transfer proper right here? What do you see once you get this one proper right here?’ So I’m already anticipating with my leverage, simply off the discharge, goes into the second section for us with the path place. [49ers QB Brock] Purdy does this factor the place it doesn’t matter the place he’s on the sector, if he rolls out and stuff like that, he’s in search of the massive play on a regular basis.”
“[McCaffrey] has no wasted motion and when he’s working the ball or he’s working his routes, studying between zone and man, he all the time makes the precise learn, it looks like,” Corridor stated. “He just about does every little thing proper, so simply seeing how he performs with minimal errors and nice consideration to element.”
Notably, McCaffrey’s greatest season — the one one through which he reached 1,000 yards each dashing and receiving — got here in his third 12 months within the league, the purpose Corridor is coming into.
As a 22-year-old in his second 12 months, McCaffrey ran for 1,098 yards with 867 within the air.
Corridor, on the identical juncture, ran for 994 with 591 within the air — properly behind, however with the caveats that the Jets offense must be significantly better this season with a wholesome Aaron Rodgers and that Corridor was coming off an ACL tear.
So what can this season appear to be?
Any fantasy soccer participant would contest the notion that Corridor is in want of a breakout — the purpose at which you possibly can draft him exterior the primary spherical is lengthy gone — but when the Jets are going to succeed in the playoffs for the primary time in over a decade, he’ll be mirroring McCaffrey in additional methods than further work after observe.
“Clearly the staff, we have now large expectations for ourselves,” Corridor stated. “I all the time have an enormous expectation for myself. For me personally, I wish to be on the market and be wholesome once more and I do know if I could be wholesome and play, be a three-down again then every little thing I need, I’m gonna be capable to do that season. We’re nervous concerning the staff objectives first and any particular person stuff will include that.”
