Carolina Panthers' Christian McCaffrey becomes highest-paid RB in NFL history – is he worth it?

Matt Becker

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Carolina Panthers' Christian McCaffrey becomes highest-paid RB in NFL history – is he worth it? image

Last season, the Carolina Panthers put the ball in Christian McCaffrey's hands again, and again, and again.

All those runs up the middle, receptions in the flat and hurdles over defensive backs came with a price, though, as the Panthers gave their workhorse running back a four-year, $64million contract extension on Monday.

Carolina rewarded one of the league's most productive players with the richest deal for a running back in NFL history, with his $16m annual salary eclipsing Ezekiel Elliott's contract of $15m per season with the Dallas Cowboys.

First-year Panthers head coach Matt Rhule surely believes he is deserving of the money and is excited to get to work with him.

''I think Christian McCaffrey is a centrepiece player that you can build around,'' Rhule said during a video news conference last Wednesday. "He's a tailback-slash-wideout, he can do it all, returner, too. So I'm anxious to get him out there and anxious to build this thing around him. I think he's going to be a special player for us.''

Truth is, he has already been a special player.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Blessed by the Best! #KeepPounding

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McCaffrey's deal comes on the heels of an All-Pro 2019 season in which he rushed for 1,387 yards and had 1,005 receiving yards to join Roger Craig in 1985 and Marshall Faulk in 1999 as the only players in NFL history to reach 1,000 yards in each category in a season.

With 2,392 total net yards in 2019, McCaffrey accounted for 43.7 per cent of Carolina's total offense – by far the largest percent by a player last season. Nick Chubb ranked second by accounting for 32.5 per cent of the Cleveland Browns offense.

McCaffrey has 39 offensive touchdowns in his career, and with 2,920 rushing yards and 2,523 receiving yards he is the only player with at least 2,500 rushing and receiving yards through his first three NFL seasons.

A quick look at his gaudy statistics and it appears that McCaffrey was due for a big pay day. The concern, though, and one of the big reasons running backs do not receive long-term, big-money contracts is because they have the tendency to break down and their production wanes in the final years of the deal.

McCaffrey does not turn 24 years old until June 7, but there is already been a lot of wear on the tires.

Last season, he appeared in 1,056 offensive plays – the most by a running back in a single season since Stats Perform began tracking individual offensive plays in 2012. McCaffrey also occupies the third spot on this list with his 966 plays two seasons ago, just seven fewer plays than the second-ranked Matt Forte appeared in for the Chicago Bears in 2014.

Not only was McCaffrey in a lot of plays last season, the ball ended up in his hands a lot.

After setting a running back record with 107 receptions in 2018, McCaffrey bested that mark by nine catches last season. He ended the 2019 campaign with 403 offensive touches – 48 more than the next-closest player in Elliott. 

In the past 10 seasons only two players have had more touches in a season than McCaffrey – DeMarco Murray with 449 for the Cowboys in 2014 and Le'Veon Bell with 406 for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2017.

And how did those follow-up seasons go for Murray and Bell?

Murray signed a five-year contract worth more than $40m with the Philadelphia Eagles but had just 237 touches and 1,024 total net yards in 2015 – less than half of the 2,261 he had with the Cowboys in 2014 – and was traded to the Tennessee Titans a year later.

Bell sat out the entire 2018 season before signing a four-year, $52.5m deal with the New York Jets, and averaged a career-low 3.2 yards per carry and scored four total TDs on 311 touches in his first season in New York in 2019.

Both Murray and Bell, however, had prior stints on Injured Reserve before signing their lucrative deals, whereas McCaffrey has not. In fact, McCaffrey has yet to miss a game in his career.

McCaffrey, though, runs with a punishing style, always looking for contact while striving to gain an extra yard. His bruising runs obviously increase his chances for injury, and there is certainly a concern that a player's body can only take so much abuse.

There is no question that McCaffrey has not only been one of the league's most versatile backs, but also one of the most dangerous with the ball in his hands, and he's now being paid like it.

Only time will tell if this amounts to be a good deal for the Panthers – it already is one for McCaffrey.

Matt Becker