Christian McCaffrey has faced every NFL franchise in his decade-long career — except his childhood team.
Sunday will be the first time McCaffrey has played against the Denver Broncos in his 10 years in the NFL. The son of former Denver wide receiver Ed McCaffrey and a graduate of Valor Christian High School, McCaffrey grew up rooting for the Broncos as a young child. At 2, he ran onto a confetti-covered field in his father’s No. 87 jersey after the Broncos won Super Bowl XXXIII. In 2016, Christian McCaffrey sported a Terrell Davis jersey at the AFC Championship Game in support of the Broncos.
The McCaffreys will have between 20 and 30 people traveling to Levi’s Stadium on Sunday, including several of Christian McCaffrey’s hometown friends from Colorado, Ed McCaffrey told the Denver Post on Wednesday. Ed McCaffrey said he’s “really looking forward” to Sunday’s game, where he’ll be watching the organization that has propelled his son onto a Hall of Fame trajectory clash against the franchise that he won two Super Bowls with.
“The 49ers are my family, and the Broncos are also my family. So that’s why it’s like a backyard Thanksgiving game,” Ed McCaffrey told The Post. “… This will be cool for him to play against his childhood team.”
Christian grew up hanging around a locker room with Hall of Fame players like Davis, John Elway, Steve Atwater, Gary Zimmerman, Shannon Sharpe and others. His love for football was partially shaped by the time he spent around the Broncos, Ed McCaffrey said.
“He was old enough to remember some of those years and some of those games, and I think that for a young person is a very cool experience,” Ed McCaffrey said.
Denver Broncos wide receiver Ed McCaffrey, left, jokes around with his 5-year-old son, Christian, and wife Lisa in the family’s kitchen in the southeast Denver suburb of Parker, in this photograph taken on Aug. 16, 2000. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
His future coach, Kyle Shanahan, was standing around with some of those same players in Denver’s locker room years earlier, as the son of Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. Due to the age gap, Kyle Shanahan and Christian McCaffrey didn’t cross paths much in Denver, Ed McCaffrey said. When Christian McCaffrey was traded to San Francisco, he needed to reintroduce himself to Kyle Shanahan in the coach’s office to see what made them “tick,” Ed McCaffrey said.
Since being traded to the 49ers, the running back has been named the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2023, Comeback Player of the Year in 2025, and has played in a Super Bowl. Sean Payton said when the Carolina Panthers traded McCaffrey to San Francisco, it “changed (McCaffrey’s) career path.” He called the McCaffrey-Shanahan pairing a “perfect fit.”
In a lot of ways, McCaffrey’s been put into the same offensive scheme that his dad played in more than 20 years ago.
“It’s really almost unbelievable that my son Christian is playing for Mike’s son Kyle with the 49ers and running the new wave version of the same offense that we ran back in the 90s,” Ed McCaffrey said.
Broncos quarterback Bo Nix first met a member of the McCaffrey family in 2024, when he was teammates with Luke McCaffrey (now a wideout for the Washington Commanders) at the Senior Bowl. Nix and Luke became friends and he’s since met Ed and Lisa McCaffrey. He said he gained respect for Luke McCaffrey when he played the majority of the Senior Bowl game, an exhibition that most players will pull themselves out of.
Valor Christian running back Christian McCaffrey poses for a portrait on Tuesday, July 5, 2011. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
“All the buzz and all the things coming off the family, you think you could be just a hotshot and just think everybody knows who you are, but (Luke) just put his head down and he worked,” Nix said.
McCaffrey did get to play against the Broncos last summer when Denver and San Francisco had a joint practice in August. Ed McCaffrey said Christian has friends on the Broncos, which Ed said will make him feel like he’s watching a neighborhood Little League game.
That won’t change Ed’s rooting interest Sunday, nor will it change Christian’s mentality, he said.
“I got a bunch of buddies on the Broncos, but you know we want to kick their ass. That’s going to be the mentality, and the Broncos are going to think about it the same way. Hey, we love Christian; he’s awesome, but we’re going to try to kill him on game day, and that’s just the nature of the beast,” Ed McCaffrey said.
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