CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Carolina Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey on Sunday joined Roger Craig and Marshall Faulk as the only players to have 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in the same season.
McCaffrey came into the season finale against the New Orleans Saints needing 67 yards receiving to reach the milestone, first achieved by Craig in 1985 and later by Faulk in 1999.
He took care of that with a 17-yard catch late in the third quarter to give him exactly 67 yards.
“Christian is the coolest kid on the planet,” Craig told ESPN. “It’s his time.”
Craig predicted during the offseason when he ran into McCaffrey in San Francisco for a showing of the Broadway hit “Hamilton” that the eighth pick of the 2017 draft would join the exclusive club. He said it was in McCaffrey’s DNA.
“For him to catch over 100 passes is so impressive as well,” Craig said of McCaffrey, who last week broke his NFL single-season record for catches by a running back when he got to 109, two more than he had last season. “And Christian is the most humble person that you ever want to meet. He was taught this from his father.”
Former NFL wide receiver Ed McCaffrey and his wife Lisa were among many of McCaffrey’s family members and friends at Bank of America Stadium to witness the milestone.
McCaffrey, 23, consistently has said joining the 1,000-1,000 club would mean more had the Panthers, who were on the verge of their eighth straight loss when he reached the milestone, been a playoff contender.
“You say it all the time, winning is the only thing that matters,” McCaffrey said. “That’s all I care about. Individual statistics get highlighted in today’s society because of fantasy football, because of gambling, because of all this other stuff.
“The people in the locker room, at the end of the day all we care about is winning. Some of that stuff can take away the beauty of football.”
McCaffrey easily topped 1,000 yards rushing, surpassing the mark in a Game 10 loss to Atlanta. He put himself in position to reach 1,000 yards receiving last week at Indianapolis with 15 catches for 119 yards.
He is just the fourth running back since the AFL-NFL merger to have a 1,000-yard receiving season, joining Faulk, Craig and Lionel “Little Train” James.
The former Stanford star came into Sunday’s game with an NFL-best 2,294 yards from scrimmage, well ahead of Cleveland’s Nick Chubb with 1,730 yards.
Chris Johnson in 2009 set the NFL single-season record for yards from scrimmage with 2,509, so that was in play for McCaffrey on Sunday as well.
Carolina safety Tre Boston summed up after the Colts loss how many of his teammates feel about McCaffrey’s accomplishment.
“A lot of guys are asking was it a wasted season because of how bad we’re playing and how well he’s playing,” Boston said. “Christian is a highlight of what’s going on, ’cause if we didn’t have him I can only imagine.”