November 24, 2025 • 12 mins
Christian McCaffrey: Evolution of the Complete Running Back
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are cracking
open the playbook on well, one of the most dominant
and frankly game changing players in football, Christian McCaffrey. We're
going to go beyond just the highlights. Our mission here
is to really dig into the sources and understand the blueprint.
You know, what's behind his current dominance?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, what makes him the ultimate scrimmage yard king exactly?
And it's such an essential dive because his success isn't
just about raw talent, right, It's not just draft pedigree.
It's a very strategic, a very detailed approach that basically
redefines what a running back can even do.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay, So to really go what makes him so different,
we have to start with this one specific moment Week
eleven against the Cardinals.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Oh, I know this play, you know, the one.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
The forty nine ers are trying to seal the game.
And it's a dicey situation.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's third and fifteen, which is I mean, that's a
long way to go. Third and fifteen is typically a
down that's reserved for your top wide outs, maybe a
tight end, right, and.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
In almost any other NFL, off or running back sprinting
wide left, isolated one on one with.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
A corner, and it's a decoy.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It's a decoy, or it's a desperation checkdown. A total afterthought,
one hundred percent. But not here. CMC runs a full speed,
fifteen yard comeback route. He elevates, makes this incredibly difficult catch.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
This incredible body control.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And it secures the first down that leads to the
touchdown that seals the game.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And that one play that's the whole story right there.
It's a whole value proposition. Rock Purty said it after
the game. He said, I don't know any other running
backs who can do that.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
We have one of a kind.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
We have one of a kind. I mean, that's the
ultimate praise because it's admitting he's useful on a spot
where by all rights, a running back just shouldn't be.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
In his stats this year, just back that up completely.
Through eleven weeks of the twenty twenty five season, he's
leading the entire NFL with one four hundred and thirty nine.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Scrimmage yards, and he's tied for second in touchdowns with eleven.
But the real stat the one that grounds that scrimmage
yard king title, go on. He is the only player
season with at least seven hundred rushing yards and seven
hundred receiving yards.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Wow, that dual threat. It makes him almost impossible to
gain plan for.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It really does. He's hit over one hundred scrimmage yards
in nine different games this year. And you know he's
chasing history.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Too, right the Marshall Fawk records exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Fox nineteen ninety nine season receiving record for a running
back that's one thousand, forty eight yards and also Fox
touchdown record for the position, which is nine.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And you can tell he means it when he says
he wants to be a complete back career wise, he's
only the fourth guy in history. D he get seven
thousand rushing and five thousand receiving yards.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But that doesn't just happen, No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And that's where we need to start. We need to
go back to the source, to the philosophy.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That shaped him, absolutely, the McCaffrey family ethos It sounds
so simple, but it's it's incredibly demanding.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
For Christian, the goal was never to just be a runner.
He wanted the label of football.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Players, someone who was valuable everywhere on the field in.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Every possible situation. Yeah, and the person who instilled that
was his father, Bed McCaffrey.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
The three times Super Bowl champ, a wide receiver.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Right, and Ed focused on things that frankly, most people
would skip, like flexibility, recovery.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Okay, tell me about that. The sources mention these stretching sessions.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Oh yeah, Ed insisted on these forty five minute stretching sessions.
And the key thing is they weren't just you know,
going through the motions.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
They were active.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Sometimes they were harder than the actual workouts. The Suns
had to be thinking about what the stretch was accomplishing.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
That's the difference, isn't it. It's mindful preparation. It's not
just you know, physical exhaustion. You're thinking, am I opening
my hips for a lateral cut? Or am I loosening
my hamstrings for a deep post?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Exactly? It's about purpose and that detail translated directly into
his route running. He and his brother Max, they didn't
just run a million different routes.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
They perfected just a few.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
They perfected two or three, and perfection meant eliminating every
single wasted movement.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So for that deep comeback like the one against Arizona
we talked about.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Right, Ed would demand he take three steps out of
the break instead of the usual five.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
It's everything in football. Fewer steps means less time slowing down,
more time exploding out of the break. You shave off milliseconds,
and that's the difference between a completion and a pass breakup.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
It's turning an athletic move into like a science it is.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
It's physics and this all aroundability. It showed up really early.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
There's that great story is brother Max tells, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
From little league, Christian was maybe in fifth or sixth grade. Well,
it happens he booms a punt, runs down the field,
chases down the returner, forces a fumble, and then picks
it up himself and returns it for a touchdown.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So that's special teams, defense and offense all in one play.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
In one chaotic, beautiful play. It just proves the foundation
was always there for complete football dominance, not just you know,
being a good running back.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Okay, So let's connect that obs with detail to his
next step. In high school, he gets mentored by maybe
the most intense guy to ever play the.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Game, Brian Dawkins Hell of Fame safety unbelievable. Dawkins becomes
the defensive backs coach at Valor Christian and CMC. He
just zeros in on him. He's constantly picking his brain
about preparation, about intensity, and.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Dawkins noticed it right away, this obsession he did.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
He said, if Christian lost a single rep in practice,
even a casual one, he would immediately demand a redo.
He had to win it back. He couldn't live with
the loss.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Wow, that's the mindset. Yeah. But Dawkins also gave him
some really specific tactical advice.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
He did, and this is key to how he plays today.
Dawkins told him that defensive backs they naturally focus on
the receivers, of course, so when they see a running
back split out wide, they kind of view him as
a decoy. In afterthought, right, they relaxed for a second, exactly.
So Dawkins told him, if you take that position seriously,
you can weaponize their lack of respect for you.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
That is just golden advice.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It's everything.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
So then you shift to his pro influences. He studied
the obvious guys like Terrell Davis for zone running and
Barry Sanders for making guys miss.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Sure the running back lights, but the two guys he
really really focused on were Marshall Falk and Ladanian Tomlinson.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And why them specifically, because.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
They weren't just running backs. They were total offensive weapons
who could beat a defense in a dozen different ways,
even if the box was stacked.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
They were complete threats, and Falk's advice to Tomlinson became
like a guiding principle for CMC.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
It did. Tomlinson tells this story where Falk told him
that pass catching would obviously make him harder to stop right.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Away, but there was more to it.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
But more importantly, it would help his game age gracefully.
It would give him longevity.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That's the secret sauce for a running back, isn't it?
And you see CMC living that right now. This season,
his yards per carry is three point seven, which.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Is tied for his career low. So the ground game
might be a little tougher, but his receiver work isn't
just a bonus.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
It's essential. It's what keeps his value sky high even
when the rushing numbers dip. It shields him from that
decay that hits every other running back.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
It does when your legs slow down just a bit.
Your hands and your brain are still elite. Tollinson played
two extra years with the Jets just by becoming an
amazing third.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Downback, and that relentless production is what led his coach
Kyle Shanahan to call him a psycho. A psycho in
the best possible way.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
In the most complimentary way. Yes, it's about his work ethic.
In practice, he's just in constant motion. One second he's
outside running a triple move like a receiver, the next
he's in the backfield running a post.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And even when he's on the sideline, he's working.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, Kyle Jazik, the full back, calls him two four
to seven. He's always got a massage gun or something.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Well, let me ask you this. Does that kind of
relentless two four to seven intensity? Does that also explain
some of his past injury issues? I mean, is that sustainable?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's a totally fair question. The sources suggest that the
way the forty nine ers use him actually helps manage
that oh soo. While he isn't just taking a pounding
between the tackles thirty times a game, and his preparation,
all that stretching we talked about is designed specifically to
mitigate the risk from all those explosive movements.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So the intensity is directed at technique which might actually
reduce injury risk over just being a battering ram.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
That's the idea. Yeah, and this work ethic, it evolves
the whole offense. Shanahan himself said, players evolve.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Offenses because CMC can run these routes from weird spots,
from unusual depths. They can draw up plays that other
teams just can't.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
They literally don't have a guy who can run them.
And we can prove that. Next Gen Stats has tracked
the stuff since twenty seventeen. Okay, that fifteen yard comeback
against Arizona we started with, Yeah, since twenty seventeen. That
was the first time a running back had run that
route and caught a pass traveling at least fifteen yards
in the air.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Wait, wait, the first time, not just by him, by
any running.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Back, by any running back. It's not that he's doing
it better, it's that no one else is doing it
at all.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
That is juinely shocking.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He also had a thirteen yard one earlier this year.
For comparison, no other running back has caught a comeback
for more than nine air yards in that same timeframe.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
So he's dominating a route that's usually reserved for your
ex receiver exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And it's not just the complex stuff. He also ranks
first among all players, not just running backs, and catches
on flat routes and angle routes.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So he's perfected this simple stuff and is the only
one doing the impossible stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And that brings it back to the preparation. He calls
himself a glorified note taker.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
He has notebooks filled with details on root concepts, on
defensive back tendencies, on how to beat a specific linebacker's leverage.
It's this incredibly cerebral approach to a physical position.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So what does all this mean for the running back
position as a whole? I mean, CMC is at the
front of this mismatch era.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
He is along with guys like Kamara Barkley, Byjean Robinson Gibbs,
and Robert Sela, the defensive coordinator. He summed up the
problem for defenses perfectly.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Would you say?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
He said that for years, the evolution of the running
back far outpaced the evolution of the linebacker. You had
these slow run stuffing linebackers trying to cover athletes like
McCaffrey in space.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's a total mismatch.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
It's a game breaker, and this versatility it's also a
financial lifeline. Think about Ezekiel Elliott, incredibly talented runner, but
he never really expanded his game into that elite receiving
threat role. So when the rushing numbers inevitably dipped a little, that.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Secondary skill wasn't there to keep his value.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
High exactly, and his time with the Cowboys was over
after just seven years. CMC is keenly aware.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Of this, of the example he's setting. The position has
been so devalued.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Contract wise it has He's making nineteen million a year,
which is top of the market, and he said publicly
running back is the most disrespected position in the NFL
for how much value a lot of these guys bring.
He hopes his performance forces a league wide reassessment.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
He's also closing in on another one of Marshall Fox records.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
He is just three receiving touchdowns away from passing Fock
for the most ever by a running back since the
nineteen seventy Merger.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
In that record, it's not just a milestone, it's the
final argument that he's not just a.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Running back, He's a singular offensive force multiplier.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So what does this all mean for you the listener?
The big takeaway here is that Christian McCaffrey's dominance it
isn't just talent. Yeah, it's this obsessive, detailed commitment to
every part of the game, from the forty five minute
stretching to eliminating two wasted steps on a route, to
the notebooks full of defensive tendencies.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
And all of that allows him to literally rewrite the
playbook for his position.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And that leaves us with a pretty important question for
you to think about as we wrap up.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
If this kind of versatility is the key to a
running back extending his career as he gets closer to thirty,
what other disrespected positions out there, maybe an interior defensive
lineman or a center. Okay, what unexpected secondary skill could
they specialize in to extend their careers and their contracts
the same way McCaffrey did with elite route running. That's
(12:04):
the next evolution we should all be watching for.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
That analysis connecting the on field detail to the financial
future of a position is the perfect note to end on.
Thanks for joining us for this deep dive. We'll catch
you next time,
Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are cracking
open the playbook on well, one of the most dominant
and frankly game changing players in football, Christian McCaffrey. We're
going to go beyond just the highlights. Our mission here
is to really dig into the sources and understand the blueprint.
You know, what's behind his current dominance?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, what makes him the ultimate scrimmage yard king exactly?
And it's such an essential dive because his success isn't
just about raw talent, right, It's not just draft pedigree.
It's a very strategic, a very detailed approach that basically
redefines what a running back can even do.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay, So to really go what makes him so different,
we have to start with this one specific moment Week
eleven against the Cardinals.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Oh, I know this play, you know, the one.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
The forty nine ers are trying to seal the game.
And it's a dicey situation.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's third and fifteen, which is I mean, that's a
long way to go. Third and fifteen is typically a
down that's reserved for your top wide outs, maybe a
tight end, right, and.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
In almost any other NFL, off or running back sprinting
wide left, isolated one on one with.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
A corner, and it's a decoy.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It's a decoy, or it's a desperation checkdown. A total afterthought,
one hundred percent. But not here. CMC runs a full speed,
fifteen yard comeback route. He elevates, makes this incredibly difficult catch.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
This incredible body control.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And it secures the first down that leads to the
touchdown that seals the game.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And that one play that's the whole story right there.
It's a whole value proposition. Rock Purty said it after
the game. He said, I don't know any other running
backs who can do that.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
We have one of a kind.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
We have one of a kind. I mean, that's the
ultimate praise because it's admitting he's useful on a spot
where by all rights, a running back just shouldn't be.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
In his stats this year, just back that up completely.
Through eleven weeks of the twenty twenty five season, he's
leading the entire NFL with one four hundred and thirty nine.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Scrimmage yards, and he's tied for second in touchdowns with eleven.
But the real stat the one that grounds that scrimmage
yard king title, go on. He is the only player
season with at least seven hundred rushing yards and seven
hundred receiving yards.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Wow, that dual threat. It makes him almost impossible to
gain plan for.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It really does. He's hit over one hundred scrimmage yards
in nine different games this year. And you know he's
chasing history.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Too, right the Marshall Fawk records exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Fox nineteen ninety nine season receiving record for a running
back that's one thousand, forty eight yards and also Fox
touchdown record for the position, which is nine.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And you can tell he means it when he says
he wants to be a complete back career wise, he's
only the fourth guy in history. D he get seven
thousand rushing and five thousand receiving yards.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But that doesn't just happen, No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And that's where we need to start. We need to
go back to the source, to the philosophy.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That shaped him, absolutely, the McCaffrey family ethos It sounds
so simple, but it's it's incredibly demanding.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
For Christian, the goal was never to just be a runner.
He wanted the label of football.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Players, someone who was valuable everywhere on the field in.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Every possible situation. Yeah, and the person who instilled that
was his father, Bed McCaffrey.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
The three times Super Bowl champ, a wide receiver.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Right, and Ed focused on things that frankly, most people
would skip, like flexibility, recovery.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Okay, tell me about that. The sources mention these stretching sessions.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Oh yeah, Ed insisted on these forty five minute stretching sessions.
And the key thing is they weren't just you know,
going through the motions.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
They were active.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Sometimes they were harder than the actual workouts. The Suns
had to be thinking about what the stretch was accomplishing.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
That's the difference, isn't it. It's mindful preparation. It's not
just you know, physical exhaustion. You're thinking, am I opening
my hips for a lateral cut? Or am I loosening
my hamstrings for a deep post?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Exactly? It's about purpose and that detail translated directly into
his route running. He and his brother Max, they didn't
just run a million different routes.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
They perfected just a few.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
They perfected two or three, and perfection meant eliminating every
single wasted movement.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So for that deep comeback like the one against Arizona
we talked about.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Right, Ed would demand he take three steps out of
the break instead of the usual five.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
It's everything in football. Fewer steps means less time slowing down,
more time exploding out of the break. You shave off milliseconds,
and that's the difference between a completion and a pass breakup.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
It's turning an athletic move into like a science it is.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
It's physics and this all aroundability. It showed up really early.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
There's that great story is brother Max tells, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
From little league, Christian was maybe in fifth or sixth grade. Well,
it happens he booms a punt, runs down the field,
chases down the returner, forces a fumble, and then picks
it up himself and returns it for a touchdown.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So that's special teams, defense and offense all in one play.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
In one chaotic, beautiful play. It just proves the foundation
was always there for complete football dominance, not just you know,
being a good running back.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Okay, So let's connect that obs with detail to his
next step. In high school, he gets mentored by maybe
the most intense guy to ever play the.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Game, Brian Dawkins Hell of Fame safety unbelievable. Dawkins becomes
the defensive backs coach at Valor Christian and CMC. He
just zeros in on him. He's constantly picking his brain
about preparation, about intensity, and.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Dawkins noticed it right away, this obsession he did.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
He said, if Christian lost a single rep in practice,
even a casual one, he would immediately demand a redo.
He had to win it back. He couldn't live with
the loss.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Wow, that's the mindset. Yeah. But Dawkins also gave him
some really specific tactical advice.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
He did, and this is key to how he plays today.
Dawkins told him that defensive backs they naturally focus on
the receivers, of course, so when they see a running
back split out wide, they kind of view him as
a decoy. In afterthought, right, they relaxed for a second, exactly.
So Dawkins told him, if you take that position seriously,
you can weaponize their lack of respect for you.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
That is just golden advice.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It's everything.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
So then you shift to his pro influences. He studied
the obvious guys like Terrell Davis for zone running and
Barry Sanders for making guys miss.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Sure the running back lights, but the two guys he
really really focused on were Marshall Falk and Ladanian Tomlinson.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And why them specifically, because.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
They weren't just running backs. They were total offensive weapons
who could beat a defense in a dozen different ways,
even if the box was stacked.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
They were complete threats, and Falk's advice to Tomlinson became
like a guiding principle for CMC.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
It did. Tomlinson tells this story where Falk told him
that pass catching would obviously make him harder to stop right.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Away, but there was more to it.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
But more importantly, it would help his game age gracefully.
It would give him longevity.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That's the secret sauce for a running back, isn't it?
And you see CMC living that right now. This season,
his yards per carry is three point seven, which.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Is tied for his career low. So the ground game
might be a little tougher, but his receiver work isn't
just a bonus.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
It's essential. It's what keeps his value sky high even
when the rushing numbers dip. It shields him from that
decay that hits every other running back.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
It does when your legs slow down just a bit.
Your hands and your brain are still elite. Tollinson played
two extra years with the Jets just by becoming an
amazing third.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Downback, and that relentless production is what led his coach
Kyle Shanahan to call him a psycho. A psycho in
the best possible way.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
In the most complimentary way. Yes, it's about his work ethic.
In practice, he's just in constant motion. One second he's
outside running a triple move like a receiver, the next
he's in the backfield running a post.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And even when he's on the sideline, he's working.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, Kyle Jazik, the full back, calls him two four
to seven. He's always got a massage gun or something.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Well, let me ask you this. Does that kind of
relentless two four to seven intensity? Does that also explain
some of his past injury issues? I mean, is that sustainable?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's a totally fair question. The sources suggest that the
way the forty nine ers use him actually helps manage
that oh soo. While he isn't just taking a pounding
between the tackles thirty times a game, and his preparation,
all that stretching we talked about is designed specifically to
mitigate the risk from all those explosive movements.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So the intensity is directed at technique which might actually
reduce injury risk over just being a battering ram.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
That's the idea. Yeah, and this work ethic, it evolves
the whole offense. Shanahan himself said, players evolve.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Offenses because CMC can run these routes from weird spots,
from unusual depths. They can draw up plays that other
teams just can't.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
They literally don't have a guy who can run them.
And we can prove that. Next Gen Stats has tracked
the stuff since twenty seventeen. Okay, that fifteen yard comeback
against Arizona we started with, Yeah, since twenty seventeen. That
was the first time a running back had run that
route and caught a pass traveling at least fifteen yards
in the air.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Wait, wait, the first time, not just by him, by
any running.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Back, by any running back. It's not that he's doing
it better, it's that no one else is doing it
at all.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
That is juinely shocking.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He also had a thirteen yard one earlier this year.
For comparison, no other running back has caught a comeback
for more than nine air yards in that same timeframe.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
So he's dominating a route that's usually reserved for your
ex receiver exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And it's not just the complex stuff. He also ranks
first among all players, not just running backs, and catches
on flat routes and angle routes.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So he's perfected this simple stuff and is the only
one doing the impossible stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And that brings it back to the preparation. He calls
himself a glorified note taker.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
He has notebooks filled with details on root concepts, on
defensive back tendencies, on how to beat a specific linebacker's leverage.
It's this incredibly cerebral approach to a physical position.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So what does all this mean for the running back
position as a whole? I mean, CMC is at the
front of this mismatch era.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
He is along with guys like Kamara Barkley, Byjean Robinson Gibbs,
and Robert Sela, the defensive coordinator. He summed up the
problem for defenses perfectly.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Would you say?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
He said that for years, the evolution of the running
back far outpaced the evolution of the linebacker. You had
these slow run stuffing linebackers trying to cover athletes like
McCaffrey in space.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's a total mismatch.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
It's a game breaker, and this versatility it's also a
financial lifeline. Think about Ezekiel Elliott, incredibly talented runner, but
he never really expanded his game into that elite receiving
threat role. So when the rushing numbers inevitably dipped a little, that.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Secondary skill wasn't there to keep his value.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
High exactly, and his time with the Cowboys was over
after just seven years. CMC is keenly aware.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Of this, of the example he's setting. The position has
been so devalued.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Contract wise it has He's making nineteen million a year,
which is top of the market, and he said publicly
running back is the most disrespected position in the NFL
for how much value a lot of these guys bring.
He hopes his performance forces a league wide reassessment.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
He's also closing in on another one of Marshall Fox records.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
He is just three receiving touchdowns away from passing Fock
for the most ever by a running back since the
nineteen seventy Merger.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
In that record, it's not just a milestone, it's the
final argument that he's not just a.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Running back, He's a singular offensive force multiplier.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So what does this all mean for you the listener?
The big takeaway here is that Christian McCaffrey's dominance it
isn't just talent. Yeah, it's this obsessive, detailed commitment to
every part of the game, from the forty five minute
stretching to eliminating two wasted steps on a route, to
the notebooks full of defensive tendencies.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
And all of that allows him to literally rewrite the
playbook for his position.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And that leaves us with a pretty important question for
you to think about as we wrap up.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
If this kind of versatility is the key to a
running back extending his career as he gets closer to thirty,
what other disrespected positions out there, maybe an interior defensive
lineman or a center. Okay, what unexpected secondary skill could
they specialize in to extend their careers and their contracts
the same way McCaffrey did with elite route running. That's
(12:04):
the next evolution we should all be watching for.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
That analysis connecting the on field detail to the financial
future of a position is the perfect note to end on.
Thanks for joining us for this deep dive. We'll catch
you next time,
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