The positive from Christian McCaffrey’s injury? He’s becoming a leader the Panthers need
Christian McCaffrey had something he wanted to say.
Instead of starting off his Monday media availability by taking a question, the All Pro running back spoke up on the state of the team.
“Before I get going on the injury stuff, I kind of want to address our team at this point and talk a little bit about the game. We’re 0-2 with 14 games left in the regular season. The last thing that I want this team to focus on is the negative,” McCaffrey said. “Football, especially in the NFL, can have a lot of factors that play into it that can affect your mental, emotional and physical play ... We’ve lost two games not because we’re a bad team. I think that’s something that can get corrected, injury or not with me.”
For many veteran leaders of a team, or even head coach Matt Rhule, this statement of confidence in the winless Panthers following an error-filled loss at Tampa Bay wouldn’t be worthy of starting of a story with or maybe even mentioning. Motivational phrases and a never-give-up attitude are commonplace when coaches and players talk to the media, and have certainly come from the running back in the past.
But McCaffrey — the most-well known and popular Panther by far — isn’t known for making public statements in this way. Or expressing that he feels like he needs to speak publicly about or for the team as a whole. His weekly sessions with the media are rarely viewed as attention grabbing or filled with story-changing information. McCaffrey is media savvy and tries not to make headlines.
Monday afternoon’s media availability was largely to cover that he is going to be out likely for four-to-six weeks with a high-ankle sprain. For the player who spends hours and hours making sure is body is in the best possible shape and health, this is an especially big pill to swallow. But as per usual, he publicly took some of the attention off of himself.
“I think this team has a lot of fight. I think our team has a lot of resiliency,” McCaffrey continued. “And we have the right guys to pick it up from here and I’m excited about that. And I want to address that first, because there’s a lot of talk with how we’re going to be as a team. Well, we have the right culture, and it’s still early, and there is still hope.”
For the first time in his four-year NFL career, the former first-round pick was voted a team captain. Gone are the locker room presences that for so many years spoke as the vocal leaders of the team — Greg Olsen, Cam Newton, Luke Kuechly. The 24 year old —armed with a new 4-year, $64 million contract from the offseason that made him the highest-paid running back in NFL history — is stepping into a leadership role more now than ever before. And, at least on a public level, he understands the impact of his words and actions outside of the locker room.
It wasn’t shocking that McCaffrey had something to say, but it was telling a day after he suffered the sprain — the first injury of his NFL career that will force him to miss a game — that A) he met with the media at all, as Cam Newton did after injuries often, and B) he specifically wanted to start by addressing the negative perception of the Panthers already have based on their 0-2 start.
McCaffrey knows that the Panthers losing their best player (him) isn’t going to improve anyone’s view of the team. But his point is to not pay attention to that..
“I just think it’s important for everyone to hear that from me. I think if you were to talk to Teddy (Bridgewater), if you were to talk to Coach Rhule and the other leaders on this team, they would say the same thing,” McCaffrey said when asked about speaking up. “Yeah, we have a young team. It’s funny because when you read the news, now, it’s so negative. If one thing happens, it’s so negative, and it’s such a sad thing to see. Because, the outside world expects perfection a lot of times when you’re in the NFL, and football is not a perfect sport and football is not an individual sport, it’s the biggest team sport in the world. And you need all hands on deck in order to win.
“When you’re 0-2, it’s not over. And that’s very important to understand.”
Again, there’s nothing profound in these words. Most of it you’ll hear time and time again from football players and coaches. Bridgewater echoed McCaffrey’s message when asked about the team just hours later.
Yes, the Panthers are a young team. And no, this season has not gotten off to a good start. The running back pointed to rare examples of teams coming back from tough starts as points of confidence. Those are likely unrealistic comparisons for this team.
It’s not a surprise that things are rocky out of the gate for a new coaching staff and a team full of rookies and less experienced additions in one of the strangest NFL seasons of all time. But McCaffrey is no longer one of those young players. Carolina can’t afford for that.
When he could have been focused on what’s next with his ankle (no one would have blamed him), he saw a need to reject the conclusions that are already being made about the Panthers.
But he made sure, before discussing something he described as “sucks” and is doing everything he can to get back on the field, to be a voice for the team.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” McCaffrey said. “I think everything happens for a reason. I think everything is perspective and attitude.”
Against the backdrop of the biggest setback of his professional career, this is a level of leadership from McCaffrey we’ve never before seen.
Want perspective on McCaffrey’s injury? It’s not the worst thing to happen to this team.
This story was originally published September 21, 2020 at 7:31 PM.
