Carolina Panthers draft Christian McCaffrey: Three things to know about the former Stanford running back
1. He may be small, but he was also a workhorse at Stanford
At 5-foot-11, 202 pounds, McCaffrey will likely have to dispel the knock that he’s too small to be an every-down NFL running back. In college, he certainly showed the ability to take on a heavy workload week in and week out.
Coach David Shaw’s uptempo offense runs through all sorts of sets, but a consistent throughout Shaw’s time there has been a primary running back who takes on a major workload - from Stepfan Taylor to Toby Gerhart to McCaffrey.
In his standout 2015 sophomore season, McCaffrey was second in carries behind only Alabama’s Derrick Henry - averaging 24 per game. The next year, despite battling injuries, sitting out the Sun Bowl and playing only 11 games, he still got the ball 253 times.
Obviously, running between the tackles in the NFL is a completely different animal from doing so at the college level. But at least one undersized back from the Pac-12 who had success as a pro thinks McCaffrey is the real deal.
“Who said that?” Maurice Jones-Drew responded to a question about the perception that McCaffrey is undersized, according to PennLive.com. “Don’t listen to this--”
2. The Panthers may get creative with him
Part of McCaffrey’s appeal is his versatility. He caught 99 balls at Stanford for 1,206 yards while returning kicks and punts as well. The Panthers brought back Jonathan Stewart on a one-year extension. While Stewart is 30 years old, he still has played 13 games in each of the last three years, run the ball at least 175 times in all three seasons and gained at least 800 yards.
That means McCaffrey’s not in the Panthers’ plans as a 20-carry per-game guy, at least not yet. He can play special teams, split out wide, and provide Cam Newton an element in the slot or out of the backfield that Carolina’s offense was missing last season.
3. In this on-field ESPN interview with him, “Yelling Stanford Fan” was born.
“HEISMAN!!”