The Athletic: Behind the scenes of the McCaffrey-Fournette debate

[Mr. Scot]

Joe Person revisits the debate over Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette from 2017: Drafting Christian McCaffrey

It seems the Panthers were already leaning toward McCaffrey anyway ("75-25", per Ron Rivera) but there was still just a little bit of lingering uncertainty up until the Jaguars took Fournette.

Scouts and personnel guys had a fair share of concerns about McCaffrey's size and whether he'd be durable enough to take the pounding of an NFL workhorse back. Former wide receiver coach Lance Taylor played a big role in convincing the team that he could.

I recommend reading the full thing, but here are some pertinent excerpts:

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Panthers founder and then-owner Jerry Richardson was a big McCaffrey proponent, and the coaching staff thought the versatile back could help take some of the pressure off quarterback Cam Newton, who had undergone rotator cuff surgery on his throwing shoulder a month before the draft.

But there were others in the organization who questioned McCaffrey’s size and durability, arguing that the bigger, stronger Fournette was a better scheme fit for the Panthers and made more sense as a complement to Newton.

The debate continued late into the pre-draft process. At least one assistant coach wasn’t sure who general manager Dave Gettleman would pick if Fournette and McCaffrey were available at No. 8.

 

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During the pre-draft process, Gettleman and his scouts studied defensive players such as Jamal Adams and Marshon Lattimore, as well as tight end O.J. Howard. But most of the focus was on running backs, with Fournette and McCaffrey at the top of the list. (The Panthers had reservations about Dalvin Cook because of his off-the-field issues but viewed Alvin Kamara as a value pick in a later round.)

Former Panthers college scout Khary Darlington was in an interesting position. Not only was he the team’s West Coast scout, and as such the point man on McCaffrey, but he also was the cross-checker on the running back position. So he was very familiar with Fournette, the LSU back who weighed in at 240 pounds at the NFL combine.

Darlington: At that time, Cam was getting the dog crap beat out of him. He was running the ball a lot. And even if he wasn’t sacked, he was still on the ground a lot. With a presence like a Fournette back there, where you have a legitimate downhill, ground-and-pound type of approach, I think always helps.

 

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Don Gregory, former Panthers college scouting director: There was still a lot of discussion. Some people balked about (McCaffrey’s) size. Is he gonna hold up and stuff like that? You can go back in the history of running backs that were a little small that didn’t hold up. But Christian was special. Getting hurt is part of the game. It’s a contact sport. But outside of that, he was special. He could do so much for the offense. And he would help keep pressure off Cam. Using him on that little flair-out, dump-off when Cam gets in trouble, shorten the game for Cam instead of having him throw the ball down the field. Who are they gonna key on? Cam or McCaffrey? It opened up a whole new possibility for our offense.

Darlington: I just thought (Fournette) was a grown man. You didn’t see that combination of size, speed, toughness. You could see exactly how he was gonna fit and exactly what we were gonna do with him. If we were trying to get back to a control-the-clock, blue-collar, strong-defense brand of football — particularly with Cam at quarterback trying to limit some of the exposure you put to him — it made sense. He wasn’t as dynamic as Christian. But I thought how he fit into our schemes, system and philosophy was a simple layup.

 

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Fortunately for the Panthers, they had someone in their building who could answer all of their McCaffrey questions. Lance Taylor, who was a Panthers assistant in 2013, returned as the receivers coach in February ’17 after Ricky Proehl left coaching. Taylor had spent the three previous years at Stanford as McCaffrey’s position coach.

Taylor — now the run game coordinator at Notre Dame — had played for Panthers offensive coordinator Mike Shula when Shula was the head coach at Alabama. And while Taylor was obviously a big advocate for McCaffrey, he didn’t want to come off like he was making a sales pitch in his first full-time NFL coaching job.

Taylor: I’d been in the organization before and was just coming back, had only been there a couple of months. The other thing I tried to be conscious of in the whole process was that I wasn’t overbearing or like a proud dad, saying, “Hey, this is my guy, we’ve gotta take him.” I wanted to present the facts and let everybody come to — what I already knew — which is the fact that I felt Christian was the absolute best player and pick that we could have, based on who he was, not only as a player, but his impact on and off the field.

 

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Darlington: The X-factor came in when Lance started talking. Lance was his coach in college and knew him on a very intimate level, in regards to how his body responds to injury, how durable he really is, what type of person he was — all that type of stuff. And while a coach can be biased at times, particularly if it’s his product you’re talking about, Lance was never overbearing when he was talking about it. It was very factual, straight-down-the-line — a very objective approach to everything.

In response to the durability questions, Taylor broke down McCaffrey’s touches for the Panthers’ staff. During McCaffrey’s sophomore season alone, he finished with 420 touches, including 337 rushing attempts.

Darlington: You approach it wondering how he’s getting that type of production. Is it because of offensive schemes, are they cheating and getting him in space and always creating mismatches, or was he getting NFL yards? Christian was earning real NFL yards.

 

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Taylor: I said, “You’re looking at a guy who’s touched the ball more in college football than anybody in the last 10, 15 years. You’re also looking at a guy who’s played in a pro-style offense.” He was running it between the tackles. Our No. 1 run play at Stanford was power. So that helped dispel the myth a little bit.

Gregory: There was plenty of tape of him running inside because that’s all Stanford did. In the Pac-12, Stanford was the one team that lived and died by the run. Everybody else was going into the spread offense in the Pac-12. Stanford stayed with basically running the ball, playing defense and ball control.

Darlington: At the time, it was like a pretty traditional NFL offense. He was earning yards inside. He had great vision, incredible footwork. All the attributes that you know can translate to the NFL game, he possessed. My only concern was size and durability. When you go back and you look at a lot of the running backs that come out of those type of offenses, a lot of colleges run their guys into the ground. So they’re coming in a little beat-up anyway because they carried the ball X amount of times throughout their college career. With Christian, he was touching the ball as a downhill runner, out of the backfield, catching the ball. He was touching the ball receiving. He was punt returning. Any way they could get the ball in his hands, they did it.

 

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Former Panthers coach Ron Rivera: When you break all the numbers down during his two-year stint from his sophomore and junior year, he ran between the tackles more than anybody else in college football. And he was the most productive guy in those two years. And when people kept talking about, oh, he’s gonna get worn down, he’s gonna get beat up, all that type of stuff, I just didn’t see it because I never really saw him take a hit.

Darlington wasn’t the only one lobbying for Fournette, who also had the backing of Southeast area scout Jeff Beathard. Gettleman liked the idea of what a big back could bring to the offense and wanted the Panthers to do their due diligence on both backs.

Rivera and Shula were in the McCaffrey camp. According to Taylor, Rivera stopped him one day to ask if there was anything else Taylor could show them that might make the decision easier. Taylor made a video of McCaffrey’s practice highlights, which showed him taking every run to the end zone (rather than stopping at the whistle). Taylor also included some cut-ups of McCaffrey running routes against defensive backs in one-on-one drills.

Taylor: We started to send him down with the receivers so that he was running routes against our best DBs. We had talked to him in the offseason about one of the things we thought would separate him at the next level was his versatility. … I showed them his route-running ability and him beating our best corners, some who had already been drafted and were in the NFL. That showed them how versatile he could be, and it also helped them say, “If this guy isn’t our starting running back, he’ll be a starting receiver and a productive playmaker for us no matter what position he plays.”

 

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Rivera: Dave was such an old-school guy because Dave likes the big guys. And we had to convince him. So we went through the process — going through all the tape and the stats and the figures and the conversation and the convincing. And Mike Shula was really good about it, too. One of the things that Mike talked about was making sure we could put weapons around Cam, and he really believed Christian was the complete weapon. With Leonard Fournette, you got the good, downhill runner, but you didn’t get the third-down versatility that we were gonna get with Christian.

Gregory: There was a lot of us that liked him for his skill set. Obviously, he led the country in all-purpose yards. He also was a punt returner, kickoff return guy. So his value was universal as far as we were concerned. He had a lot of value as far as (special) teams, receiver, running back. And of course, he comes from pedigree with his parents.

 

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The Panthers continued with their homework on Fournette. Assistant GM Brandon Beane, now the Bills’ general manager, and running backs coach Jim Skipper were in Baton Rouge for LSU’s pro day, where Fournette weighed in 12 pounds lighter than at the combine — but still a load at 228.

But the balance seemed to be tipping toward McCaffrey, who had Rivera, Beane and Skipper attend his pro day.

 

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Gregory: The discussion was on and on and on. I don’t think there was a final decision probably until going into the draft week when we had our final meetings. Then when we start peeling away the layers of pick 8, you can’t miss. That’s gotta be a home run, like Kuechly was a home run. Then you have to look, how does the kid fit in our offense? Well, McCaffrey actually fit better. He had more versatility for our offense than Fournette. And then picking that high, is he clean? Does he have any holes? Does he have any warts?

Darlington: You started getting a sense that this was gonna be our guy. … Offensive coordinators start licking their chops when they find dynamic players to create mismatches. You can kind of see them salivating, rubbing their hands together at times. And I feel like once that seed was planted, or once we started going down the path of everything you could do with him and once we started to compare that to — can you do those same things with Fournette? — Fournette started losing favor pretty quickly.

 

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Rivera: Once we went to Stanford and watched him prepare and get ready for his pro day, you could absolutely tell that this guy had the same type of characteristics as a Luke Kuechly, a Thomas Davis, a Greg Olsen, a Ryan Kalil-type personality. You could just tell that this guy was the focused type guy that you’re looking for. And I’ll be honest, seeing him in person was what really sold me on him.

Gregory: I think Ron was 100 percent with McCaffrey. I think Mr. Richardson was 100 percent behind McCaffrey, and I think Dave just wanted to go through the process and we weren’t missing anything. Fournette was still in the discussion, but I think it was just window dressing at that time.

 

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At the watch party in Denver, McCaffrey felt like time was moving slowly through the first seven picks. In Charlotte, Taylor was still uneasy … until the Jags took Fournette at No. 4.

Taylor: I was very concerned that if Leonard and Christian were both sitting there, I was worried. I felt like we may pick Leonard. Because when you look at prototypical size and old school, and the type of back Carolina has been used to — when you talk about Stewy and DeAngelo (Williams) and some of the great backs in Carolina history — you’re talking about guys who for the most part are prototypical size. So when he was gone, I think there was a huge sigh of relief because it became, hey, this guy’s now the clear choice.

Rivera: At that point, we were probably 75-25 on going with Christian. And the best thing that happened is Fournette got taken by the Jaguars, and then at that point, it was clean. There was no discussion. Nothing needed to be done. In fact, we might have put that card in in a record time.

 

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As the Panthers were preparing to call their pick in, Taylor’s wife, Jamie, sent him a video of their 2 1/2-year-old son, Jet, saying he wanted the Panthers to pick McCaffrey. Around the same time, McCaffrey’s phone buzzed with a call from a Charlotte area code.

And in Philadelphia, Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis joined commissioner Roger Goodell on stage to announce the pick.

“With the eighth pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Carolina Panthers have selected Christian McCaffrey, wide receiver — I meant, running back — Stanford.”

 

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Taylor: I think what he’s done and who he is speaks to exactly what Carolina is getting for a really long time. He has probably exceeded most people’s expectations. And he’s going to continue to because of who he is and how he’s wired. The guy lives with a chip on his shoulder. He’s been told all his life that he’s not big enough. He’s not fast enough. He’s not the prototypical — he’s a white running back. Whatever you want to say, he’s been told all those negatives and he continues to use those and embrace those as fuel. He plays with that constant chip on his shoulder. He’s constantly working and outworking everybody to prove all the doubters wrong.

Rivera: I’m so happy for Christian for him getting the deal done (four-year, $64 million extension). I’m so happy for the Carolinas, for the fans. You’ve got this guy who’s just a phenomenal young man and the right kind of guy to be the face of the franchise. So that’s really cool.

Segal: The great news is Christian’s happy. The club’s happy. When you get a win-win, you can’t ask for more than that.

Gregory: It was a great pick.

 

 

 

[LinvilleGorge]

The size/strength issue was definitely a concern. Hell, it was even a concern during his rookie season. He had a solid rookie season, but man if seemed like every time he got tackled he was getting straight up ragdolled WWE style. He suffered some terrifying looking tackles that rookie season, but he got bulked up a bit and got a lot stronger after that and it hasn't been an issue since.

[Moo Daeng]

It will be interesting to see how his utilization changes under Joe Brady. There were some criticisms about the new contract based in the idea that his impact in the passing game is around the line of scrimmage. This completely ignores that he will have a new OC and HC and previous trends are somewhat meaningless. He's been able to do pretty much anything that has been asked of him. Does anyone actually think he can't produce in the passing game if being tasked with running a little bit deeper routes?

[Mr. Scot]

If you notice the flow of the story, it sounds like the scouts and the team liked Fournette better early on (Khari Darlington was definitely in that camp) but the more they talked about it and the more Lance Taylor showed them, the more the pendulum swung the other way.

Funny now to think that the team unceremoniously parted ways with Taylor not so long after.

[run-run-pass-punt]

What I think stands out most to me about him as a player, skill set aside, was expressed in the article.

"He has probably exceeded most people’s expectations. And he’s going to continue to because of who he is and how he’s wired. The guy lives with a chip on his shoulder. He’s been told all his life that he’s not big enough. He’s not fast enough. He’s not the prototypical — he’s a white running back. Whatever you want to say, he’s been told all those negatives and he continues to use those and embrace those as fuel. He plays with that constant chip on his shoulder. He’s constantly working and outworking everybody to prove all the doubters wrong. "

It's so obvious watching him - you see how much drive he has. He's one player I have no concerns about when it comes to getting paid and then taking it easy.

[Ratzer]

Man was I wrong. I wanted Fournette really bad. 

[LinvilleGorge]

23 minutes ago, Moo Daeng said:

It will be interesting to see how his utilization changes under Joe Brady. There were some criticisms about the new contract based in the idea that his impact in the passing game is around the line of scrimmage. This completely ignores that he will have a new OC and HC and previous trends are somewhat meaningless. He's been able to do pretty much anything that has been asked of him. Does anyone actually think he can't produce in the passing game if being tasked with running a little bit deeper routes?

I definitely think he's still going to be heavily used in the passing game. LSU's RBs combined to catch 79 passes this past season and they didn't have a CMC type receiver at RB though Edwards-Helaire is no slouch in the department. CMC has also been talking about how much he's currently working to improve even more as a receiver while staying at his dad's house with his brothers... both of his brothers currently P5 D1 QBs and his dad a former very good NFL WR.

[Waldo]

I like what Ron said. He was sold after seeing him in person. I agree, I was more worried before game action and then it became clear that he is special. Now what he did to bulk up and improve in year 2 was even more amazing. A couple of pounds and some noticeable strength made him easily the best RB in the league.

[45catfan]

Of course Dave was implied to be in the Fournette camp.  This is why even though many mocks have Simmons going to the Giants, I just can't see Dave passing up an OT for a LB/S.

[panther4life]

19 minutes ago, Ratzer said:

Man was I wrong. I wanted Fournette really bad. 

We weren’t alone! 

[*FreeFua*]

CMC was a JR pick, this isn’t news.

[stbugs]

29 minutes ago, 45catfan said:

Of course Dave was implied to be in the Fournette camp.  This is why even though many mocks have Simmons going to the Giants, I just can't see Dave passing up an OT for a LB/S.

It sort of implies that, but he’s the GM. He’s supposed to be a bit more objective. I think this quote below makes sense to me and is likely accurate versus reading into things. I think Fournette going early made it a moot point but other than keeping every door open, I think CMC was our guy regardless. His receiving ability was the key. Cam just got beat to heck from the SB through 2016, we needed a safety valve and a RB, not Fournette.

I think Ron was 100 percent with McCaffrey. I think Mr. Richardson was 100 percent behind McCaffrey, and I think Dave just wanted to go through the process and we weren’t missing anything. Fournette was still in the discussion, but I think it was just window dressing at that time.

[Mr. Scot]

57 minutes ago, Ratzer said:

Man was I wrong. I wanted Fournette really bad. 

I remember some people were raging pretty hard when he was picked.

[CanadianCat]

I still remember my list that year was OJ Howard - Fournette - McCaffery.

 

Glad Im not making the picks.