{"id":729115,"date":"2026-02-04T16:09:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T16:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/729115\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T16:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T16:09:18","slug":"49ers-christian-mccaffrey-wins-2025-salute-to-service-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/729115\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers&#8217; Christian McCaffrey wins 2025 Salute to Service award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN FRANCISCO &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/sf\/san-francisco-49ers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">49ers<\/a> All-Pro running back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3117251\/christian-mccaffrey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Christian McCaffrey<\/a> is the USAA 2025 Salute to Service award winner.<\/p>\n<p>McCaffrey beat out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/min\/minnesota-vikings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a> running back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3042519\/aaron-jones-sr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Aaron Jones<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/dal\/dallas-cowboys\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Cowboys<\/a> tight end <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4242355\/jake-ferguson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jake Ferguson<\/a> to win the award announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The award recognizes the &#8220;exceptional efforts by members of the NFL family to honor and support the military community.&#8221; McCaffrey will be recognized at NFL Honors on Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>The Christian McCaffrey Foundation launched an initiative, 23 and Troops, in 2021, that offers a medically based, holistic approach to support Special Operations forces veterans healing from post\u2011traumatic stress. The program has contributed nearly $700,000 to military support efforts, including $250,000 to REBOOT Recovery and a recent $250,000 partnership with Resilience Code to provide veterans with a full year of personalized medical care. The foundation has also eased seasonal burdens by covering holiday layaway balances for 515 military families.<\/p>\n<p>McCaffrey also regularly connects with active-duty personnel, veterans, and families.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This honor means a lot because it reflects the strength, sacrifice, and resilience of the men and women who serve our country,&#8221; McCaffrey said. &#8220;Football has given me a platform, and I believe it comes with a responsibility to serve others the right way. As an athlete, I&#8217;ve been fortunate to have access to the best care and recovery resources available, and I believe our service members and veterans deserve that same level of intentional support as they heal from both the visible and invisible wounds of service.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>USAA, a provider of insurance, banking and other financial services to U.S. military members, veterans and their families, will contribute $25,000 in McCaffrey&#8217;s name to the official aid societies representing each of the military branches. The NFL Foundation will match USAA&#8217;s donation of $25,000, which will be donated to McCaffrey&#8217;s military charity of choice.<\/p>\n<p>This is the second straight year a 49ers player won the award with tight end <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3040151\/george-kittle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Kittle<\/a> winning last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO &#8212; 49ers All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey is the USAA 2025 Salute to Service award winner.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[7,6,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-729115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-nfl-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116013234006496360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}