Niners Nation
The Carolina Panthers held a conference call for their former running back, Christian McCaffrey, who is currently putting up an Offensive Player of the Year season with the San Francisco 49ers.
McCaffrey was first asked whether he thought there was ever a possibility of him being traded during a down season:
“In this league, everything is a possibility at all times. There’s no guarantees. Ever. I’ve gotten to that point and mindset in my career that I’m blessed to be on the field whenever I am. It’s a business. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the business. My dad had been cut and then traded. That’s the nature of these. When you worry about things that you can’t control, nothing good happens. I thought that I would focus on what I could do.”
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a former teammate who speaks a bad word about McCaffrey. Jaycee Horn, a $100 million man who spent 1.5 seasons as McCaffrey’s teammate, called McCaffrey “Not just a great player, one of the best guys I’ve seen lace them up. The type of leader he was for me as a young player coming in here, just everything — he did everything right; pre-practice, post-practice, did everything right, taking care of his body, his diet. As a young guy, it meant a lot watching him while I was rising here.”
Back to the trade, where McCaffrey told George Kittle on his podcast earlier this week that he thought he was headed to the Los Angeles Rams. Here’s McCaffrey rehashing the week he was traded in 2022:
I was prepping to play. It’s a confusing mindset to be in with that looming over your shoulder. That week was a weird week for me. It’s hard not to hear the talks around you about it. But I really just tried to lock in and focus on practice, focus on meetings. I wanted to play on Sunday. I just didn’t know where it was going to be and where I was going to play.
I thought I was going to the Rams just because that’s what I had heard. Then my agent told me I was going to the Niners. That’s kinda how that week went. It was late on a Thursday night. I was on a flight on Friday morning. It was a quick turnaround.
McCaffrey ended up playing 22 snaps that Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs. That was four fewer than starter Jeff Wilson Jr.
McCaffrey said there’s always added motivation, so this week is no different, despite playing against the team that drafted him. He discussed how being traded to the 49ers and how that could be the best thing to happen in his career is a loaded question:
Getting traded to San Fran, it opened my eyes to so much. It was a massive blessing. What I learned during that whole process was incredible. To answer your question, yeah, it was a huge blessing....
