CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ Christian McCaffrey will finish one of the best individual seasons in Carolina Panthers history Sunday in Carolina's season finale vs. New Orleans _ a rose amid the thorns of a prickly and forgettable year.
Most Panthers fans have moved on to what's next _ a new coach, a top-10 draft pick, the Cam Newton quandary for 2020. Not McCaffrey _ very much in the present, sometimes quoting from the past.
"The whole 'Looking into the future thing' has to stop," McCaffrey said following the Panthers' last game at Indianapolis. "Football, and life in general, is a day-by-day process. A good saying that Coach Rivera used to say is 'Be where your feet are.' "
Coach Ron Rivera is gone, of course. He was fired Dec. 3 by Panthers owner David Tepper, in the midst of a losing streak that has just kept growing like Jack's beanstalk.
McCaffrey's numbers have been growing like that, too. He needs 67 yards receiving Sunday against New Orleans to reach a goal he has long sought: a 1,000-yard season both rushing and receiving, which only two other NFL players (Marshall Faulk and Roger Craig) have ever accomplished. He's already qualified for his first Pro Bowl, and he leads the NFL in scrimmage yards per game by a staggering 564 yards. He's a 99 in the "Madden 20" video game _ a ranking only five players in the NFL currently hold. I thought his 2018 season was the best a Panthers running back ever had; this one has been even better.
How long can all this productivity last? McCaffrey, 23, doesn't like gazing into that crystal ball. But others worry about his workload, both internally and externally. Safety Tre Boston said after the Indianapolis game that what McCaffrey is doing is "spectacular."
But Boston also said that throwing the ball 15 times to No. 22 _ as the Panthers did Sunday _ was far from ideal.
"You want to know how the (New England) Patriots are good?" Boston said. "Because they look downfield, and if they don't have it, they check it down to those running backs. It can't be our first option _ just break the huddle, go to Christian. It's tough on him. That's when you guys (reporters) get to wondering about longevity."
It's unclear exactly how much McCaffrey will play against New Orleans. Interim head coach Perry Fewell very much wants to avoid going 0-4 in his short stint and said this week he will play his starters. In a similarly meaningless game for Carolina in last year's season finale, Rivera started McCaffrey but played him only the first series. McCaffrey ended up with only five touches.
I'm OK with McCaffrey getting more playing time than that this time. He may never have another chance at the 1,000-1,000 mark, which down the road would likely increase his chance at making the Pro Football Hall of Fame, among other things. Down the line, the Panthers surely will sign him to a lucrative contract extension.
"Those things are cool," McCaffrey said of the various marks he has set this season. "But it doesn't matter if you don't win. I just want to win. If those things can help winning, then great."
It has helped win in one sense _ without McCaffrey, Carolina may have won three games instead of five. Yet McCaffrey has been powerless to stop the Panthers' seven-game slide, as the team has fallen from 5-3 to 5-10 in this lost season.
But McCaffrey, the Panthers' 2017 first-round pick out of Stanford, seems to be evidencing an almost Zen-like demeanor as the season concludes.
"You can't count the touches," McCaffrey said. "You've got to make the touches count. And I think when you do that, good things happen. When you prepare correctly, good things happen. ... Simplify your life. And go from there."
