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Anthony Gharib, ESPN
One of the toughest players to bring down in the open field, San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey has been avoiding defenders for years.
An old clip of McCaffrey doing his best job juking helpless mascots on the way to a touchdown made rounds on social media this week.
The young McCaffrey took the end around run to the house, juking Toro, the Houston Texans mascot, almost immediately. He got a nice block on Blue, the Indianapolis Colts mascot, before walking into the endzone.
Not much has changed since then.
Throwback to a young @CMC_22 juking out mascots.
Just wait for the celebration at the end. 😂 pic.twitter.com/iS1Av1BFXF
— NFL (@NFL) September 25, 2023
If the run wasn’t enough, McCaffrey had a unique celebration too. He did his best Terrell Owens impression, taking a sharpie out of his pocket and signing the football before throwing it in the crowd.
McCaffrey, who was drafted No. 8 overall by the spoke to his former organization about the clip in 2020.
“It was kind of scripted. They said, ‘Christian, you’re going to run a little reverse, and just try to make guys miss and score and whatnot,'” McCaffrey recalled per panthers.com. “So we get out there first play, all I remember, by no means were the mascots taking it easy on us. They were actually hitting some of these kids pretty hard. I’m already a younger kid, playing up at another level, and these guys, I think it dawned on me quick these guys have to put on a show. They just can’t let the little kids score… So me running as fast as I could was pure out of fear to not get hit by one of these adult mascots.”
The run happened during a 2003 Week 9 Monday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots. McCaffrey’s father, Ed, was a receiver for the Broncos at the time. The 7-year-old McCaffrey was playing on his brother’s 9-year-old peewee team and stole the show with the 29-yard touchdown.
McCaffrey has over 5,000 rushing and nearly 4,000 receiving yards in eight seasons. He’s off to a hot start this year with 353 rushing yards and three touchdowns through three games.
