"It's what makes him a special person" - Christian McCaffrey recalls one of his earliest childhood interactions with Tom Brady
With Tom Brady's retirement still fresh in people's minds, seemingly everyone is coming forward with opinions, predictions, and memories of their interactions with the quarterback. Most players have a story about when they played with or against him, but Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey has a unique memory that shows just how long the quarterback has been around.
McCaffrey, a star in his own right today, was just another kid in the stands when he met the superstar quarterback. The Panthers running back told Fox News about the time he and his little brother met the No. 12.
"I remember when I was little, and my dad had just got done playing for the Broncos and, believe it or not, my dad played against him," McCaffrey said. "My little brother was a massive Tom Brady fan. He’s a quarterback. Wore No. 12 because of him, and the Patriots had beaten them at Mile High. And after the game, my little brother wanted an autograph from Tom Brady.
"He had just lost the game, and when you lose you get upset. And my brother asked, and he couldn’t have been nicer. [Brady] went up to him and gave him the time of day, and I think that, to me, is what makes him a special person."
Who was Christian McCaffrey's father and when did he play against Tom Brady?
If one has read other stories about encounters with the quarterback, they have seen the core points of McCaffrey's story before. However, one little snippet of the story is worth further unpacking. According to McCaffrey, his father not only played in the NFL, but he also played against the superstar quarterback.
Meaning, the quarterback has played against two generations of McCaffreys. That goes to show just how long the quarterback has been around. McCaffrey's father, Ed McCaffrey, played wide receiver for three teams in the years between 1991 and 2003. According to Pro Football Reference, he started out with the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers before getting his big break with the Denver Broncos.
Imagine if the entire internet commemorated the anniversary of the time you had one too many margaritas… twitter.com/bleacherreport…
Meaning, he was part of John Elway's final stretch of domination, including back-to-back Super Bowl victories, before the quarterback's retirement in 1999. He stuck around into the early 2000s without Elway, eventually playing against Brady in the last couple of years of his career.
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The former quarterback played against Ed McCaffrey in the early 2000s (Patriots vs Broncos) and his son (Buccaneers vs Panthers) in the early 2020s, showing the wide array of eras TB12 has rubbed shoulders with. However, with his retirement, the last big adjacent piece to the era of 1990s football has left the stage.