McCaffrey queried on sitting out bowl
frey has drawn plenty of praise and criticism alike for his decision, which he didn’t address publicly until meeting with the media at the NFL scouting combine.
Teams also are peppering him with questions about bypassing the bowl game, he said.
“I just tell them how it is when they ask,” McCaffrey said. “I’m extremely honest with them and then we move on to now and playing football.”
What he tells them, he said, is “it was a career decision … to try to protect my dream of playing and succeeding in the NFL.”
Running back Leonard Fournette missed Louisiana State’s Citrus Bowl matchup with Louisville to rest an injured ankle, a decision he announced three days after McCaffrey, the 2015 Heisman Trophy runner-up, said he would sit out the Sun Bowl against North Carolina after dealing with a bruised hip in 2016.
“As a Stanford fan, I wasn’t a huge fan of that. But they did all right without him, too,” new 49ers general manager John Lynch said, adding that while he understands the bowl boycotts, “I know people here that that really bothers.”
Broncos boss John Elway, who played with McCaffrey’s father, Ed, didn’t initially agree with Christian’s decision but has come around.
“Obviously, when I thought about it, kind of the old school in me wanted to come out saying, ‘Why not play? It’s your last game,’” Elway said. “But when you look at where the league is now and the value of these contracts for these kids coming out now, and the risk that they’re taking, the old salty guy in me got flipped back to saying I understand why they didn’t play.”
The decisions by McCaffrey and Fournette came a year after Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith cost himself millions by blowing out his left knee in the Fiesta Bowl. Smith was projected as a top-five pick before his injury, and instead went to the Dallas Cowboys in the second round with the 34th overall pick. The difference in guaranteed contract money is about $19 million.