The Carolina Panthers have lost a lot of franchise legends over the past four months as the team looks to head in a new direction for the foreseeable future under new owner David Tepper and new head coach Matt Rhule.
And now they’ll have a leader and new face of the franchise to guide them into the new era after the team agreed to a four-year, $64m extension with All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey that will keep the running back in Carolina through the 2025 season, a league source confirmed to The Riot Report Monday afternoon.
“I think Christian McCaffrey is a centerpiece player that you can build around,” Matt Rhule said last week. “And I think he really builds to the culture that you want to have within the building.”
Last season, McCaffrey had one of the best seasons in NFL history for a running back – he was the first offensive player in NFL history to be named an All-Pro at two positions, the third player in NFL history to have 1,000 yards both rushing and receiving and the 23-year old had 2,392 scrimmage yards in 2019, tops in the NFL in 2019 and third-most in one season in NFL history.
While the trend around the league has been to shy away from big contracts for running backs, the new coaching staff obviously views McCaffrey as more than just a back – his 116 receptions last season bested his own NFL record for the most receptions by a running back and with an innovative new offensive coordinator like Joe Brady, the Panthers offense will likely use McCaffrey as much more than simply a guy whose gut you can stick the ball in for the next four seasons.
Whether they can get value from a contract that will pay McCaffrey one of the highest salaries in history for a running back – the extension will raise the price of the next two seasons remaining on his rookie deal and will pay him about $75m over the next six seasons as currently constructed – remains to be seen, but a playcaller like Brady seems well-equipped to try.
“I hired [Brady] because I know that he’s going to utilize guys to their strengths,” Rhule said, saying that McCaffrey is “a tailback-slash-wideout – he can do it all. So I’m anxious to get him out there and anxious to build this thing around him. I think he’s going to be a special player for us.”
The extension will keep McCaffrey on the team until he’s 29 years old.
Besides the obvious on-the-field contributions that McCaffrey can give the Panthers, the team will look to McCaffrey to be the face of the franchise – at least for the next few years – after a messy breakup with star quarterback Cam Newton and the sudden retirement of Luke Kuechly. McCaffrey can be a positive and strong voice in a locker room that all of a sudden is missing it’s centerpieces – the 2017 first-round pick has already begun to raise his profile and stature in the community, creating a fundraising effort to support front-line medical workers including physicians, nurses and other hospital staff battling the COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals throughout the Carolinas and his hometown of Denver, CO.
The 22 & You program has already raised more than $150,000.
As the team continues to evolve into the next era, McCaffrey can be a stabilizing force both on and off the field – when Matt Rhule said last week that he wanted Carolina to be “a place that it’s all about the game” and that’s the kind of attitude Christian McCaffrey can bring to the Panthers.
“You win or you learn and obviously, we lost a lot, but there’s two ways you can go about it,” McCaffrey said near the end of last season about the team’s losing streak as he continued to rack up franchise and league records. “You can mope about it and cry about it and whine, but that does no good, but like I said every week – win or lose, you’ve got to….get back to the drawing board, correct your mistakes [and] capitalize on what you did well and move forward from there.”
“The individual statistics, obviously they’re great and cool and stuff you can look back on and be proud of yourself, but we would love to get this thing fixed – and fixed quick.”
Now he’ll have the chance to be around on what he hopes will be the other side of that fixing period – and be handsomely compensated for helping to guide the Panthers through it.
