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Christian McCaffrey was drafted by the Carolina Panthers in 2017, where he turned into arguably the NFL's best running back. Over the past few years, the team wasn't good even if he was, so they ended up trading him away for a haul of draft picks.
It was one of the biggest trades of the NFL season and it made sense for both the aimless Panthers and the Super Bowl-aspiring San Francisco 49ers.
However, the trade came as a bit of a surprise to McCaffrey, who loved Carolina:
"For me, I never thought I'd get traded. I thought I was a Panther forever. I'm like, I bought a house there. This is home. And I had heard the rumors in the offseason. So I you know, obviously I called the GM."
Scott Fitterer, the Panthers' GM, told him there was no validity to the trade rumors he had been hearing:
"I'm like, hey, man, just you know, I just need to hear it from you. Any truth? And he was super honest. He's like, look, absolutely not. We don't want to do this, you know, but we'll listen to everything. And that's fair. I'm like, sounds good. Just let me know."
As the season went on and the Panthers got worse, they fired head coach Matt Rhule. It was then that McCaffrey realized he was probably leaving sometime soon:
"I think it was four or five games and the rumors had continued to go on and coach Rhule got fired... And I figured like if this was going to happen, this is how it happens. Maybe subconsciously [I was anticipating] but I never addressed it."
It was a tough situation for McCaffrey, even if he ended up in a better place.
The Carolina Panthers didn't just lie to Christian McCaffrey
Over the last few seasons, the Panthers have not been a well-run organization. In 2019, shortly after new owner David Tepper took over, they lied to and about Cam Newton like they did to Christian McCaffrey.
Matt Rhule said he couldn't wait to work with Newton as the starting quarterback. A few weeks later, they released him under the guise that he wanted a trade. They did something similar with Greg Olsen, too, as they released him under questionable circumstances prior.
The Panthers can't seem to get out of their own way, and they often prove to be one of the worst-run teams in the NFL.
