A nice treat at 4:30 on a post-Draft Monday: Grant & Danny played the audio of Dan Quinn and Adam Peters’ phone call to third-round pick Luke McCaffrey moments after turning the card in to select the second-generation wideout.
And then, we got to hear from Luke himself, who told Grant & Danny he ‘can’t wait to get out there and get rolling’ after becoming the latest McCaffrey to join the NFL ranks.
“You have no idea what’s going to happen as a player, you walk into Draft Day blind. My dad always says all but one team talked to him throughout the process, and the one that didn’t is the one that drafted him!” Luke laughed. “I’m stoked to be here, it’s a cool fit for me, and to be part of something new you can grow and build with is such a blessing.”
Luke did meet with Adam Peters and company at the Senior Bowl and the Combine, and with so many connections to his family on the staff, he already feels at home.
“(QB coach) Tavita Pritchard was at Stanford and (RB coach) Anthony Lynn was in San Francisco with my brother and Adam (Peters), and Larry Izzo is a Rice guy,” Luke said. “You still have some familiarity no matter how deep those connections are.”
Unlike his dad and famous brother, Luke was actually a quarterback all the way up to his first year at Rice, but when the time came to evaluate his future, it was catching passes, not throwing them.
“As a competitor you’re not too worried about where you end up, you focus on getting better every day. There’s always room for improvement, so you focus on that. So, I went into that last offseason before I switched and did a little evaluation of myself and what I believe in and relayed it to football, and it led to me being open to do whatever,” he said. “I was told don’t switch until you’re ready to not play quarterback again, and that was the time. I talked about running back or safety, but we didn’t have enough receivers on our roster, so I stuck with that and got a fresh start midway through college.”
He ended last year second in FBS with 17 contested catches, and he thinks that toughness and his ability to grasp any receiver position will serve him well in DC.
“A big part of that is credit to my team at Rice; we put emphasis on timing and our coaches trusted the receivers to get it done, so credit to the system and culture we built,” he said. “I think one of the coolest parts of my game is my versatility; I can play inside or out, I can play in the backfield or as a Wildcat quarterback, and even return kicks. It’s fun because I’m excited to see what an imaginative coach like Kliff Kingsbury thinks of when he sees me as a player, and I’m excited to learn from some vets.”
That includes WR Coach Bobby Engram, who he praised s someone ‘who understands all aspects of playing the position,’ and he looks to take pieces of game from everyone he sees or works with – including his famous family, who he hopes to make proud as another legacy.
“It’s the biggest lesson I never earned, a blessing and a gift I’ve had in my life, and to say they haven’t helped in every possible way is a lie,” McCaffrey said of his dad and brother. “They do such a good job of letting me learn myself, and then reach out and give advice when the time is right. My dad, once he knew you were invested in something, he would help in any way he could, and any extra advantage he could find to help us be better on game day, he’d preach it to us.”
And now, once that first check clears and he upgrades his decade-old Xbox, he’ll get to play Madden as himself, and not just as Ed’s son or Christian’s little brother playing as one of them.
“I have an Xbox from 2012 so I think I need to update it,” he laughed. “And I heard Justin Jefferson said that every year he bumped his ratings to 99; as a rookie you usually start pretty low, so I may do that!”