Christian McCaffrey touches the ball more than most in football, but now that the San Francisco 49ers are out of contention, he says the real work begins.
Backstage at the Intuit for Education Super Bowl Financial Literacy Forum, the running back spoke candidly about what the offseason looks like for a player who carries such a heavy load.
‘How much time do you have?’ he joked when asked about how he recovers following a season. ‘It’s an all-year commitment and 24-7 commitment to putting your body in the best position it can be in to go out there and do what I have to do for my team.’
McCaffrey explained he meticulously trains in phases mapped to the calendar, recovery cycles built around his workload.
‘It’s just a consistent effort to find the exact best thing to do and the time that you have and commit to a plan,’ he said.
This year, the grind begins under a familiar cloud of disappointment: the 49ers aren’t playing the pinnacle football game on their home turf of Levi’s Stadium. The running back didn’t pretend that feels normal, or easy.
‘Any time you’re not playing in the Super Bowl, everybody’s bitter,’ he said. ‘There’s only one team happy at the end of the year.’
Instead of watching from inside the stadium, he will be on a plane heading to see family with his wife, Olivia Culpo, and their six-month-old daughter, Colette. He’s ‘hoping it’s a good game,’ not committing to rooting for the Seattle Seahawks or New England Patriots. Instead, his mind is looking toward the fall.
‘Every year you have to start from zero, getting young guys on board, and starting fresh from that,’ he said. ‘So we really take it one day at a time and it starts with offseason training.’
That attention to process is also what brought him to the Intuit forum, a day centered on teaching high school students financial discipline.
McCaffrey told the room of Bay-area teenagers that success, whether on the field or with money, requires the right motivation.
‘I don’t play football for money, and I don’t play football even for accolades,’ he said. ‘I never have, and I never will. The guys that love the game, ironically, are the ones that get the money and the accolades.’
The running back may get his next accolade Feb. 5. He’s a finalist for Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year at the annual NFL Honors.