The dam is about to burst on college players like Christian McCaffrey opting to skip bowl games – Yahoo Sports

Sometime in the not-so-distant future, nobody will blink about what Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey announced he was doing on Monday – skipping the team’s upcoming appearance in the Sun Bowl. Why is he doing it?

“So I can begin my draft prep immediately,” McCaffrey said in a statement.

McCaffrey had already declared he was turning pro after his junior season. That was earlier in the month. This was the realization that playing in another game – a bowl game no less – was both a waste of time and an undue risk. McCaffrey plays running back, a position seen by NFL teams as nearly interchangeable. Mileage matters and one knee injury can end everything.

McCaffrey’s father, Ed, played 13 seasons as a receiver in the NFL, where he won three Super Bowls (one with San Francisco, two with Denver). He currently works on the radio crew for the Broncos, where his old quarterback and friend, John Elway, is in charge.

The family knows the system. The family knows the league. The family knows the sport. The family knows how perilous it is to fulfill that dream of not just becoming a pro, but remaining one. This isn’t some kid listening to an agent or a middleman uncle or whatever other stereotypical boogeyman can be invented. This is no callous, money-desperate crew, either.

This is business, smart business from smart people. Christian isn’t the only Stanford product in the family. Both Ed and his wife, Lisa, went there, too, home to the elite academics and 99 percent football graduation rate.

So what does it mean when they, the McCaffreys, looked at the Sun Bowl and said, “Forget it, this is not worth it,” and figured if they want an authentic plate of flautas de pollo, they’ll fly down to El Paso themselves and order some?

Oh, you can bet other players and parents are paying attention.

The dam has been ready to burst on player participation in bowl games for a while now, but with McCaffrey providing cover, here’s the expectation that the flood is coming. It may have already started with the decision by LSU running back Leonard Fournette to skip the Tigers’ bowl game. However, Fournette is recovering from injury, so there was a plausible reason for his non-return. McCaffrey is totally fine.

For generations College Football, Inc. has argued that skipping a bowl game was akin to treason against the team, that the joy of suiting up one last time with your buddies had an incalculable value, that the chance to get a little warmth, a swag bag and an opportunity to meet the Sun Court was too much to pass up. Even the thought of skipping would supposedly scare off NFL teams, which would questioned the players’ commitment and coachability.

A million excuses were invented as the bowl directors made their millions.

Well, the McCaffreys not only believe that not playing in a bowl game won’t negatively impact Christian’s draft stock, they believe taking the extra days to prep for the draft process will actually help it.

That’s an additional step forward from simply avoiding an injury. Sure no one wants a big one, the way Notre Dame’s great linebacker, Jaylon Smith, had his knee ripped apart in last year’s Fiesta Bowl. Smith was projected as a top-10, maybe top-five pick. He wound up in the second round, a loss of over $10 million in guaranteed money.

The cash is just part of it – smart, educated people such as Smith are unlikely to hurt for money across their life (and yes, $10 million is $10 million). The dream was to play in the NFL, though. That’s what he worked toward. This year he had to rehab the entire season. No one knows what he’ll be in the future, or how long he’ll last.

It can also be a small injury though, one that impacts January training. It can be the risk of one more concussion. It can be the full-contact practices that lead to fatigue. It can even be the distractions of the aforementioned Sun Court, or anything else that isn’t laser focused on a single goal.