Former Carolina Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman likened quarterback Cam Newton to a Ferrari back in 2017—stating that if you have one, you can’t leave it sitting in first gear. Five years later, the team’s current head coach feels the same way about his high-octane toy.
Matt Rhule spoke with reporters on Monday, six days ahead of the 2022 season opener against the Cleveland Browns. He’d eventually go out of his way to mention that there’s a lot of hype in the locker room surrounding running back Christian McCaffrey—who’s set to make his return from another injury-plagued slate.
“I don’t think anything we’ve done isn’t smart,” he said of how the organization has handled McCaffrey’s recovery. “He’s a tailback in the National Football League. Right? He had a ton of usage the two years before I got here. The propensity, after that much usage, of being injured is really, really high. The benefit is he’s had two years now to kind of reclaim his body. He’s in the best shape of his life.”
McCaffrey would agree with that last sentiment. In fact, he said exactly that at the start of training camp—saying his renewed balance of work and recovery has him feeling the best he’s ever had.
The 26-year-old will now be entering his sixth pro campaign after having missed 23 of a possible 33 games over his last two. So, he’ll definitely be looking to get back to that 2019 form—when he became just the third player in league history to amass at least 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards in a single season.
And Rhule doesn’t want to hold him back from that.
“We’re gonna play him,” he added. “He’s a great player. We’re gonna play him. We also have other backs we like. So as the rosters develop, hopefully some of the load can be dispersed because we want it to be dispersed. But we’re gonna play Christian ’cause we think he can impact the game.”
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