SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Quickness. There is nothing more immediately obvious about how Christian McCaffrey operates on the football field, that’s it.
McCaffrey traded from Carolina in the whirlwind of Thursday night through Friday afternoon. 49ersHe was introduced to his team following a cross country flight.
McCaffrey arrived in Santa Clara just 14 hours after learning of the trade. Upon arrival at Levi’s Stadium, McCaffrey wasted no time in beginning to lobby 49ers general manager John Lynch to let him play in the team’s showdown this Sunday against Kansas City.
“He said, ‘This is just a road game,’” Lynch said. “‘I’ve practiced twice this week. I boarded a plane. I made it out here.’”
McCaffrey quickly passed a physical, and he walked out onto the field where the 49ers were halfway through practice. The team had just finished a drill period, so its running backs mingled near the sideline for a couple of minutes of rest when McCaffrey — wearing his new No. 23 — joined them.
23 looks great on your body, @CMC_22. 🔥 (via @49ers)pic.twitter.com/7YJJlj7KNH
— NFL (@NFL) October 21, 2022
“Everyone got to meet,” 49ers running back Jeff Wilson Jr. said. “It was just a quick, ‘What’s up man? Happy you’re here, man. I’ve been watching you. I respect you, too.’ It was just chatter. Just a little bro talk.”
But that also passed quickly, because it came time to begin McCaffrey’s crash course on the 49ers’ playbook.
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“We’re trying to get him going quick,” 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. “We talked him over our language, how we call plays, pass protection, stuff like that. That’s the only thing that’s going to slow a new guy from getting on the field: understanding what the language means. What does it tell you when a play has been called?
“If he can pick that up, at least for a few plays, I’m sure he’ll find a way to get mixed in there.”
After practice, McCaffrey swung through the 49ers’ locker room, where his new stall is positioned right in between tight end George KittleCornerback Charvarius Ward. McCaffrey spoke briefly with two of his teammates. Talanoa HufangaAnd Charles Omenihu, who’d pulled up chairs for a brief but jovial introductory conversation.
He then left for the news conference room to finish the meet-and-greet ceremony.
“In my opinion, (this is) the best run game and one of the most explosive offenses in the league,” McCaffrey said of the 49ers at the lectern. “How could you not want to play here as an offensive weapon? I can’t express how happy I am to be here.”
“How could anyone not want to play there?” @CMC_22I’m ready to be a Niner🔥 #FTTB pic.twitter.com/wJ8dbq0iRi
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) October 21, 2022
McCaffrey was stuck in Carolina on a losing team. McCaffrey was stuck on a losing team in Carolina. Panthers, a league-worst 1-5 to begin 2022, had won only five games in each of the three preceding seasons and had finished above .500 only once while McCaffrey was there — in 2017, his rookie year. McCaffrey was limited to just 10 games in 2020 and 2021 by injuries. The running back is now healthy for six of the six games in 2022. He clearly loves this new opportunity with 49ers.
McCaffrey is now under the coaching guidance of Kyle Shanahan (49ers coach). McCaffrey’s father, Ed, played under Shanahan’s dad, Mike, both with the 49ers in 1994 (where Mike Shanahan was offensive coordinator) and with the BroncosFrom 1995 to 2003 (where Shanahan served as the head coach). Christian McCaffrey was a Denver native, born in 1996. At the time, Kyle Shanahan (16 years old) was attending high school in Denver.
McCaffrey is also connected to Lynch through his parents, both of whom attended Stanford at the same time as the future 49ers’ GM. Lynch was a quarterback for the Cardinal in the early days of his career, and he threw touchdown passes to Ed McCaffrey. Lynch even said Friday that he specifically remembers fraternity parties during the time that Ed and Lisa, Christian’s mother, began dating.
Over two decades later, Christian McCaffrey would follow in his father’s footsteps and play football for Stanford. He posted an illustrious career there, racking up 3,864 all-purpose yards in 2015 to smash Barry Sanders’ NCAA single-season record. The versatility that McCaffrey would later showcase in the NFL — he eclipsed 1,000 yards in both rushing and receiving in 2019 on the way to All-Pro status — was on historic display in college.
“What he has done at Stanford is awe-inspiring,” Stanford coach David Shaw said when McCaffrey declared for the NFL Draft in 2016. “You can put Christian in the same category as John Elway, Jim Plunkett and Andrew Luck.”
So Friday’s arrival at the 49ers’ facility, which is less than 15 miles from Stanford Stadium, was a homecoming of sorts for McCaffrey (fittingly, Stanford is playing its homecoming game this weekend).
“Welcome back to the Bay” is the 49ers’ signage for Christian McCaffrey pic.twitter.com/PvKv0Rz8M9
— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) October 21, 2022
“It’s special,” McCaffrey said. “You try to stay as business as you can, but it is special, just being back in the Bay Area, where I’ve had so many great memories, going back to Stanford. Having friends who are still here, knowing a lot of guys here.”
One of McCaffrey’s best memories while playing for Stanford actually came at Levi’s. McCaffrey shattered Sanders’ record there in a 2015 Pac-12 Championship Game victory over USC, racking up a staggering 461 all-purpose yards in one game.
For that illustrious game, Stanford used the 49ers’ locker room — the same one that McCaffrey is settling into now, nearly seven years later.
He is now an actual 49er player. The 26-year-old McCaffrey is under contract with the team through the 2025 season, and both Lynch and Shanahan have made it clear that they intend for him to be a long-term fixture — and not just a short-term rental. How that will work financially and any roster maneuvers surrounding it are all still to be determined. Let’s start with McCaffrey’s unique pairing with quarterbacks. Jimmy GaroppoloAnd Trey LanceIt will be fascinating.
But for now, McCaffrey is focused on what’s immediately in front of him. That’s Sunday’s showdown against the Chiefs, and he badly wants the coaching staff to activate him for it.
“The good thing about the game being on Sunday is that you still have two days,” McCaffrey said. “You can process a lot in two days and figure out a lot in a short amount of time and hopefully be ready to go.
“It’s just my job to learn as much as humanly possible the next two days and get ready to play a football game.”
Said Lynch: “It’s a tall order, but we’ll see how much we can accelerate this.”
McCaffrey was outfitted by the 49ers with his helmet and cleats as soon as he passed his physical. Time is a scarce resource.
If McCaffrey succeeds in this ongoing crash course, he’ll don a full 49ers’ game-day uniform on Sunday. This could make a complete circle.
Against Kansas City, the 49ers will wear their throwback uniforms from 1994 — the one season that Ed McCaffrey spent with the team.
So Christian McCaffrey, in his first game with the 49ers, has the chance to wear the same uniform combination — red top, white pants — that His father woreIn his last game with team.
That was the 49ers’ most recent Super Bowl victory. McCaffrey’s acquisition is a move that the franchise hopes will help it on a similar winning path.
(Photo: Jim Dedmon / USA Today)
