Some players have been willing to flout local stay-at-home orders, and go work out with other top players.
For Christian McCaffrey, staying at home means having access to a pair of college quarterbacks, allowing them all a chance to fine-tune their workouts.
Via David Newton of ESPN.com, the Panthers running back has been staying busy back in Colorado, where he works out in a park near his boyhood home with his brothers Dylan and Luke. Dylan’s a junior quarterback at Michigan, and Luke’s a sophomore quarterback at Nebraska, and they have access to a guy who can run any route they might want to throw.
Of course, having father Ed McCaffrey, who played in the NFL and now coaches at the University of Northern Colorado there to supervise things doesn’t hurt.
“I’m able to do everything,” Christian said. “It’s just not with the team.”
Oh, it’s a team, one that’s been together long beyond the time the Panthers drafted McCaffrey in the first round and later made him the highest-paid back in the league.
The McCaffreys know they’re fortunate to be able to gather to work on a daily basis, staying active while sheltering in place outside Denver, where Christian has an apartment near the family home.
“It’s provided us with a good situation for the time, even though each one of us would love to be with our teammates,” Dylan said. “Never in a million years would we have come home for this long and have the opportunity to do this if the world wasn’t, unfortunately, the way it is right now.
“I don’t know if we have all sat down and focused on football like this, probably ever.”
They at least have some familiarity with this type of work. When McCaffrey was drafted, players from schools on the quarter system couldn’t join their NFL teams until after graduation, so he didn’t meet with his Panthers teammates in June.
It might be longer than that this time, but at least he’s familiar with his workout partners.