There are only a handful of athletes with it. It's the italicized version. They're magic. They can make you leap off the couch, they cause you to shout. In the NBA, Michael Jordan had it. Today, Steph Curry is doing it, hitting incredible three-pointers from Mars at crucial times during the game. Amazingly, despite all their accomplishments, Wayne Gretzky and Tom Brady seldom caused you to drop your jaw. Their amazing streak of titles mostly stemmed from a shrewd, yet evidently skilled approach to their work.
Of all the players across every sport, Bo Jackson in his sadly-shortened NFL career had some of the most amazing moments. He would glide by one player and then completely destroy the next. Now, we have one Senate candidate from Georgia who was quite amazing to watch: Herschel Walker.
There's an additional player to the list of the most watched gamers: Christian McCaffrey, traded 10 days ago to the San Francisco 49ers. He was a standout during his days at Stanford as well as great with the Carolina Panthers since 2017.
The following Sunday, McCaffrey was able to throw for a touchdown. He's a running defender, so he decided to throw in one of his own. For good measure, he made a stunning leaping catch to score the TD. The last player to throw, run, and then catch a touchdown in that same match was LaDainian Tomlinson back in 2005, and the only other player to have done this since the merger of the NFL and AFL that year was legendary Walter Payton in '79.
McCaffrey actually scored the exact same three-point win in Stanford in 2015, versus USC, so we shouldn't be too surprised.
As the legendary Chris Berman likes to say, “let's go to the highlights”:
McCaffrey finished with eight receiving yards and 94 rushing yards in the Niners were able to slay the Super Bowl champion LA Rams 31-14. Not to be missed in the midst of McCaffrey's excellence, QB Jimmy Garoppolo had arguably one of his finest games in his professional career with a dazzling 21-25 for 235 yards with 2 touchdowns. It was the best rate of completion of a player in the NFL since Steve Young in 1997.
It was a great 2nd 49ers game played by McCaffrey. It's yet to be determined whether he will be able to make the same impact over the remainder of this season, but he's been an excellent performer throughout his entire career. The coach of the Niners, Kyle Shanahan, seems to have the right understanding of how to work with him and his method is ideal for his impressive skill set.
