The Panthers have made Christian McCaffrey the richest running back in NFL history, signing him to a four-year, $64 million extension, locking him in through the 2025 season.
Let’s check in with our team at Panthers Wire and see how they are feeling about McCaffrey’s new mega-deal.
Anthony Rizzuti
Yes, Christian McCaffrey is different. Christian McCaffrey is a game changer. Christian McCaffrey is really damn good. But he’s still a running back. Trying to justify a major investment at the position is almost always a fruitless endeavor, especially for a team with so many voids left to fill. Remember, we’re still in the same offseason where Los Angeles and Arizona pressed the eject button on Todd Gurley and David Johnson. While McCaffrey may not have the pre-existing injury history as Gurley, banking on the fact that he’s gone relatively unscathed through two seasons of high usage isn’t a wise bet.
Odds are that all those carries and targets will catch up to him eventually, likely leaving Carolina with a different player come Year 2 or 3 of this extension. If team owner David Tepper is consulting his analytics on this decision, it’s less of a football algorithm and more of a business one. The math probably looks something like subtracting McCaffrey, Cam Newton, Luke Kuechly and Greg Olsen the same year = 0 butts in the seats.