Oh the outrage.
“Spurn” was actually the word used by our very own website – as in, “Max McCaffrey spurns the Denver Broncos, headed to Raiders.” Really? Seems a bit dramatic. Don’t you think?
Max McCaffrey is a fan of his dad, and a fan of his dad’s old team, and even a fan of his dad’s old team’s new boss – John Elway.
“I grew up his biggest fan,” McCaffrey told the Denver Post in April after a workout for the Broncos at Dove Valley. “It was incredible. Just an amazing experience, and I’m very blessed to be here. I had a chance to talk to him for a little bit. He thanked me for coming out, and I thanked him for letting me come out here. It’s a great opportunity.”
But hey, Max McCaffrey is a pro now. This is business, and sometimes business leads a young man to, well, Oakland. And that’s okay. There’s no spurning involved.
Ed McCaffrey had some fun with his son’s decision, taking to social media with a video titled “When your best friend signs with Oakland.” After all, Ed understands the business of professional football. The Broncos, as a matter of fact, were his third NFL team.
But us Broncos fans – boy, oh boy – we can be a sensitive and protective bunch.
A radio personality said, “I feel the same way now as I did when he went to Valor Christian.”
@DeanJeffery04 tweeted, “Why do you think he decided to go to the Raiders of all places?”
Others said worse.
Well, to answer Dean’s question, Max McCaffrey decided to go to Oakland for the same reason his dad chose to sign with Denver – opportunity.
In 1994, his fourth season in the NFL, Ed McCaffrey was targeted just 14 times – making 11 catches – for the San Francisco 49ers. To be fair, he was playing behind Jerry Rice and John Taylor. But his offensive coordinator took a job as the Broncos head coach the next year and knew what kind of player McCaffrey could become.
That coach, of course, was Mike Shanahan, who needed some depth at wide receiver. To begin the ’95 season, Denver’s receiving corps featured an aging Vance Johnson, an undrafted rookie named Rod Smith, Anthony Miller, who was in his eighth year as a pro, and former Buff and five-year vet Mike Pritchard who Shanahan felt (oddly) was too small.
In his first season in Denver, Ed was targeted 63 times, had 39 catches and two touchdowns. The next season he started every game he played. And after that, he won two Super Bowls.
The current Broncos roster features six wide receivers under contract – two of which are Pro Bowlers – and three more college free agents.
The Raiders? Compared to the Broncos, the wide receiver job is wide open. Veterans Michael Crabtree and Amari Cooper are locks as starters, but after that, things open up. Second-year man Seth Roberts was decent – not great – last season, so he heads into camp as the No. 3. Andre Holmes returns, but his production was down significantly in 2015, only hauling in 14 catches. Second-year man Andre DeBose returns, but as a seventh round draft pick last year, he never saw the field in 2015. Along with McCaffrey, K.J. Brent of Wake Forest and Johnny Holton of Cincinnati were signed as college free agents.
Sounds like an open competition for spots three through six.
And don’t forget the importance a coach can have. Remember how Shanahan brought Max’s old man along with him to Denver?
Well, in Oakland, there’s a coach named Brent Vieselmeyer, who’s just in his second year with the Raiders. He coaches the linebackers, but that didn’t stop him from vouching for Max.
“Very competitive. Very smart. Tireless worker. He has all those qualities you hope to have in a player,” was Vieselmeyer’s scouting report of Max, surely the same thing he told the Raiders scouting department or head coach Jack Del Rio.
And speaking of Del Rio, that’s who casually mentioned taking a shot at the pros to Vieselmeyer right before he departed Valor Christian High School, where he coached Max McCaffrey and Luke Del Rio, to coach at Houston Baptist.
“Couple years later, [Jack] called me up…” Vieselmeyer said over the phone yesterday.
Even though Vieselmeyer won’t be involved in coaching the wide receivers, he did recall that Max was one heckuva special teams player, both at Valor and early on at Duke.
“You have to [play special teams] nowadays,” Vieselmeyer said. “That’s something [Max] will take pride in. [An NFL] roster is so small; that’s how most guys get on.”
For an undrafted college free agent, work ethic is everything. So, too, are relationships.
“We always joked, when he was going off to college, that maybe I’d get to coach him again someday,” Vieselmeyer said of Max.
When his former player became a Raider over the weekend, the phone call that followed seemed serendipitous: “It was, ‘Well, here we go again.’”
If “again” is anything like the first time, the Broncos – and their fans – had best beware. Together, Max McCaffrey and Brent Vieselmeyer won three state titles at Valor Christian. While both will be climbing their way up the ladder in Oakland, would anyone bet against them? The AFC West is anything but safe.
And if you don’t like it, Mr. Broncos Fan, take it up with Mr. Elway. In a few years, you might really dislike Max McCaffrey – not because he’s a Raider, but because he just beat your Broncos.
