Will the Carolina Panthers be without star running back Christian McCaffrey in Week 4 against the Arizona Cardinals?
Although it seems like McCaffrey ends up on the injury report every week, this time the situation seems a little bit more serious.
McCaffrey usually gets Wednesday practice off as a veteran rest day. But this week he wasn’t on the field whatsoever, and after practice it was revealed that the running back is currently dealing with a quad injury. Panthers head coach Matt Rhule wouldn’t speculate on whether or not he’ll be available on Sunday.
Fantasy Football Impact of McCaffrey’s Injury
Coming into the game against the Cardinals, we have McCaffrey ranked as the No. 1 running back on our Stokastic NFL Start/Sit Fantasy Football Rankings. If he’s unable to go on Sunday, it’ll likely be backup running backs Chuba Hubbard and D’Onta Forwman who handle most of the work load for Carolina.
Last season, Hubbard filled in for the injured McCaffrey for most of the season, but didn’t have too much impact for the Panthers.
Playing in all 17 games, Hubbard rushed for just 612 yards and five touchdowns. He averaged 3.6 yarder per carry and just 36 yards per game. In 10 of those 17 games, Hubbard was the featured back thanks to a couple of different injuries McCaffrey suffered throughout the course of the season.
Through the first three weeks of the 2022 NFL season, McCaffrey has 243 yards and one rushing touchdown. Hubbard and Foreman each have just four carries to this point of the season, and the expectation is that they’d have a platoon situation if McCaffrey were to miss time.
