Christian McCaffrey and Kyle Shanahan Are Chasing Their Fathers’ Shared Achievements

The star running back is playing for his father’s former ball boy, the son of his favorite coach, on the team with which he once won a championship.

An episode of the Your Mom podcast featured three moms and zero NFL news breakers, and yet, the former became the latter serendipitously. This conversation went live in October 2022, as All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey considered the unthinkable, perhaps leaving Carolina, and, if so, where he might end up.

One mom/host, the journalist Ashley Adamson Coakley, had no vested interest in the destination. The other mom/host, Lisa McCaffrey, cared a great deal. Their guest that day was Peggy Shanahan—wife of longtime NFL coach Mike, and mother to their two children, including Kyle, head coach in San Francisco. She also cared, but on two levels—one, for Christian as a person, owing to deep ties between their families; two, as a 49ers die-hard who wanted to add one of the NFL’s best players, regardless of position. “This is just funny,” Peggy said on the podcast. She had no idea.

All knew San Francisco ranked among the teams most interested in McCaffrey. So Lisa and Peggy joked about Christian landing in San Francisco, with the franchise his dad once played for and more ties between that team and his family than for any team, or any family, in pro football. “It was a harbinger,” Ed McCaffrey, Christian’s father, said in January, as the Niners sped back toward the NFC championship game.

The podcast morphed into exactly that. The day after the episode dropped, Peggy’s son and other decision-makers shipped three selections in the 2023 draft (second, third and fourth rounds) and a fifth-rounder in ’24 to the Panthers for Lisa’s son. The trade, huge in all senses, also transported two families back in time. Their NFL DeLorean read 1994. Ed played for the 49ers that season, the only one the receiver spent in San Francisco, where he trained alongside legends such as Jerry Rice and played for Mike Shanahan, the Niners’ offensive coordinator. Christian wouldn’t be born for almost two years. Kyle, who turned 15 that season, was a ball boy.

McCaffrey is one of several explosive players in a Kyle Shanahan offense that still borrows plenty from Mike Shanahan’s original system :: Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports

None could foresee the events that would unfold 28 years later, how so many paths wound away from all the others, only to wind back to the same place, in different forms. How Mike Shanahan and Ed McCaffrey would win three Super Bowls together—one in San Francisco and two in Denver, where Mike became head coach and took Ed with him. How their sons would become better versions of the men themselves, picking the same jobs in the same profession. And how, one day many years in the future, the younger versions would team up just like their fathers had, to aim at the same goal—winning championships that have eluded them.

The experiment kicked off and, by January, Ed was calling from Sundance, heartened by his son’s development under his former ball boy and hoping both could return San Francisco to the perch it once owned, atop the NFL universe. The 49ers haven’t triumphed since that season of great symmetry. In the 29 seasons since, the franchise made 12 playoff appearances.

Ultimately, the Niners fell to the Eagles in the conference title game last season. But their experiment in familial team building has yielded the desired results and maybe more. Christian has scored in 15 straight games, including playoff clashes, breaking Rice’s Niners record (12) and tying his streak with those compiled by O.J. Simpson, John Riggins and Lenny Moore for the longest such streaks in NFL history. San Francisco remains one of the NFL’s best teams, 5–1 through more than one-third of the season. Heading into Week 6, their point differential stood at a misprint-level plus-113, while their offense ranked second to the Dolphins in expected points added per play.

From the podcast until Sunday, all seemed perfect for two families reunited in the same place. But threats resumed, on all fronts.

Ed said his favorite part of the podcast was the surprise cameo from Kyle, who came on near the end to pay tribute to his mom. They are still waiting for the moment they hope will be their favorite of the reunion in San Francisco. They know that moment, intimately, from having lived it a generation ago.

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The running back enjoyed his nearly six seasons in Carolina, where he starred early, developed into a franchise-heightening force and scored 50 regular-season touchdowns. But the Panthers made only one playoff appearance in that stretch, in 2017, his rookie season. McCaffrey lost most of his ’20 and ’21 seasons to injuries, playing in only 10 games. Meanwhile, the franchise changed ownership, coaches, roster configurations, schemes and everything else.

When Carolina fired Matt Rhule midway through the 2022 season, Ed McCaffrey, in a second interview from this October, said his family understood that “anything was possible at that point,” including the unthinkable: Christian’s being traded. His parents followed the same reports as breathless fans. His mother taped the podcast. The 49ers made the deal. Suddenly, the “world” in question shrunk.

Ed understood Christian’s physical abilities and figured he would fit well in any system. But he also understood the Shanahan offensive systems better than any other. Kyle’s offense wasn’t the same as his father’s offense, the one Ed starred in. But it didn’t take more than a surface glance to see the soul of Mike’s scheme in the evolved version his son drew up. No scheme fits Christian better.

Ed loved the connections. His college teammate, John Lynch, was the 49ers’ general manager. Lynch had compiled a deep, tough, complete roster filled with dizzying talent, particularly on defense and with the offensive skill-position players. Ed trusted Kyle’s brain. He respected Anthony Lynn, a former teammate turned assistant head coach and running backs coach in San Francisco. Same for Bobby Turner, another running backs coach who, back when Ed played, drove the development of Mike Shanahan’s famous zone-blocking run scheme, elements of which Kyle still deploys. “Just a great environment,” Ed says.

Having never been traded in his career, Ed didn’t have much advice on that front. But he did know about acclimating to a new team—and familiarizing in San Francisco. Ed became a 49er after three seasons with the Giants, and it wasn’t easy, finding ways to fit in on a team with several established stars. He did so, in part, by befriending Rice, the biggest star of all, and yet, a wideout who wanted to mentor younger teammates. Ed trained with Rice, played alongside him and picked up some tricks along the way. As Christian grew older, he heard more and more Rice stories from his dad, until the Hall of Famer took on a mystical sheen.

Shanahan was a ball boy for Ed McCaffrey’s lone season in San Francisco, and now gets to coach his son on one of the best offenses in the league :: Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports (Christian McCaffrey); Stan Szeto/USA TODAY Sports (Kyle Shanahan); John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated (Ed McCaffrey)

Christian heard more of the same after the trade to San Francisco. But the bulk of his conversations with his dad centered on mindset. Ed told Christian to block out all trade rumors and ignore any analysis about his potential fit. He reminded Christian it would take time to learn a complex offense and mesh with teammates such as Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and the rest. Ed told Christian to meet with others who worked at team headquarters beyond his coaches and teammates, to make that campus in Santa Clara, Calif., into a home. Christian did everything his father told him, settling into a hotel down the street from the facility to aid in achieving all aims. “Just remember: It takes time,” his father told him.

Um, not exactly. Christian played for Carolina in Week 6, days before the trade, and he played 23 snaps for San Francisco the next week. In Week 8, he became the first player since 2005 with a rushing, receiving and passing touchdown in a game. In Week 14, he surpassed 100 rushing yards for the first time in a new uniform. And, the important stuff: In January, Christian started a playoff game for the first time since his rookie season.

Whenever father and son connected, Christian mentioned the same thing. While acclimating with the second-team offense, he couldn’t help but notice the backup quarterback could play. They often put in extra time together after practice. Which is how Ed found out that Brock Purdy was far better than anyone had predicted long before Purdy enlightened everyone else.

Perhaps lingering concerns before that stretch were unfounded to begin with. Regardless, in San Francisco, Christian changed the narrative around his career once more. No reasonable observer would ever have dropped him from the ranks of “elite” in recent seasons. But the combination of injuries, losing and the Panthers’ mere willingness to move him combined for a (relative) fall from his top-of-the-top standing. In San Francisco, still only 26 when the trade went through, McCaffrey silenced all skeptics, proving his toughness, passion and ability remain.

Combine all that with McCaffrey’s immense talent and everything—and everyone—around him, and many understandably tabbed the Niners as the preseason favorite to win Super Bowl LVIII in February. Who would defensive coordinators choose to attempt to limit? McCaffrey? Samuel? Kittle? Part of the field? Part of the younger Shanahan scheme?

Didn’t matter. That’s the beauty, not just of that offense but of those players in that offense. Stop one thing, and Shanahan is waiting to adjust, counter, dominate. Throw in Purdy and more time to adjust for Christian, and, by the time the season started, anything less than the first Lombardi Trophy since Ed’s lone season in the Bay Area would be considered more than a disappointment. With this team, it became either the ultimate triumph … or failure.

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Ed is careful with how he frames Christian’s impact in San Francisco. The wins, the Purdy revelation and the start to the 2023 season don’t owe to him alone. But Christian, as the catalyst, or one of two main catalysts (along with Purdy or anyone else), seems fair. And that projected into a playoff run, at least. Before Sunday.

All know that inside the 49ers’ locker room, a small, understated banner hangs near one corner. The banner contains only numbers, and those numbers make years, and each year corresponds to a season in which San Francisco won the Super Bowl. Most franchises would gladly trade souls for the Niners’ tally of titles (five). But it’s the gap—now 29 seasons—that hurts anyone invested in their history. Ed never showed Christian his championship rings when Christian was growing up. He wanted the boy to earn and cherish his own.

Could all the connections end the drought?

Imagine the McCaffrey household. Lisa would be thrilled for Peggy. Ed would watch Christian help former teammates who have endured their share of criticism (Lynch, Lynn) win an elusive championship, along with the ball boy from his first title who happens to be the son of his favorite coach. More than anything, though, Ed and Lisa want that for Christian, the boy who grew up around those championship teams in Denver, who sprinted onto the field for confetti showers, who went to Stanford and became a star and then a staple and then saw that star dim just a bit before getting a new start. It’s not easy, as Christian and Kyle Shanahan understand, to follow fathers into greatness.

To translate all that, well, movies have been fashioned from less dramatic circumstances. Thus when the 49ers hosted a strong Cowboys team in Week 5 and promptly bludgeoned Dallas back to pretender status, everyone dared to dream of the ideal scenario unfolding.

Ed relived all the Purdy second-team stories, while hearing Christian’s name mentioned more increasingly with Rice, for the touchdown-scoring history they shared. “So far, so good,” Ed says, 48 hours before Cleveland. “Jerry was awesome, such an incredible competitor. Players like Jerry helped me become a better player. It changed my career. He’s like family to me.”

Now, as Ed bumped into Rice at every home game, others were speaking that way about his son. Christian is becoming a benchmark of his own now, the gold standard of running back play not just this season but in an era, same as Rice.

McCaffrey won three Super Bowls with Mike Shanahan, including two with the Broncos :: John Biever/Sports Illustrated

Then Sunday happened. “The best offense in football,” per the television broadcast but realistically behind Miami, followed McCaffrey downfield, his first run a jump cut that netted a long gain; their first score, a shovel pass from Purdy to him, followed by a nimble dance into the end zone. But the script flipped after halftime, as a recent foe—injuries in bunches—returned to San Francisco’s sideline. Elite right tackle Trent Williams limped off the field; followed by Samuel, who rode a cart into the locker room; followed by … McCaffrey, who remained on the sideline, performing stretches to stay loose, his pants stained with his own blood, from an elbow cut. He came back in, went back out and never returned. On Monday, Shanahan said his prized running back would undergo MRI tests on his midsection, with an update to follow the results.

Without that trio of Pro Bowl–caliber players, the Niners sank. Even then, San Francisco almost won. The 49ers led late in the fourth quarter, their defense collapsed at precisely the point when elite defenses win football games and they still had a field goal attempt to win—but missed.

Whether that ruins San Francisco’s season seems impossible to answer now. But it did raise fair questions for moving forward. Were the 49ers too reliant on a running back with a significant injury history? Were other teams targeting his body on purpose—a notion floated anonymously by teammates due to facemask, roughing and targeting penalties on tackles but dismissed by Shanahan as impossible—to hasten his physical decline over the entire season. Those are also hard to answer. Will he return? When?

Here's what we do know: that Kyle Shanahan has proven he can win with all manner of talent and all types of quarterbacks … that San Francisco has won in recent seasons despite similar spates of injuries to key players … and that Christian McCaffrey, who wasn’t born when his father won that Super Bowl in San Francisco, has proved, over and over again, one sentiment above all others. Knock him down, knock him out or trade him in his prime. None of that matters. Because this McCaffrey, like all McCaffreys, has proved he will get back up, even better than before.