ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Awkward, much?
After all, Ed McCaffrey is considered royalty, of sorts, where one of the Oakland Raiders' biggest rivals reside: Denver.
So one of his sons choosing the Raiders over pops’ Broncos surely had to be cause for some disconcerting moments in the McCaffrey household, no?
No. There was no handwringing.
“He was right there when I made the decision,” Max McCaffrey said with a sly smile last week.
“Obviously, I grew up watching my dad on the Broncos, cheering for them. But at the same time, there’s [only] 32 teams. I just want to play football and this organization has been nothing great for me and to me.”
But does he have much of a future with said organization?
Max McCaffrey, after all, is an undrafted free agent from Duke who is essentially attempting to claim one roster spot with the Raiders already set with four wideouts in Amari Cooper, Michael Crabtree, Andre Holmes and Seth Roberts.
Including Max McCaffrey, there are seven other receivers on the Raiders’ 90-man roster, with six of them being undrafted rookies.
And after catching 117 passes for 1,341 yards and 12 touchdowns in four years at Duke, including 52 receptions for 643 yards and 5 TDs as a senior, the 6-feet-2, 200-pounder may figure more as a slot receiver.
Even as Max McCaffrey, who describes himself as a “physical” receiver, does not like to place labels on himself.
“Max is faster than me,” Ed McCaffrey told USA Today in April. “I’m not afraid to admit it. He’s always been fast. Speed is something I always worked on really hard. He does have some God-given speed and I think that will serve him well.”
The younger McCaffrey ran the 40-yard dash in 4.36 seconds at Duke’s pro day, which would have been the second-fastest time at the combine.
No, Max McCaffrey was not invited to the combine.
Instead, he was invited to sign with the Raiders.
“Work hard and make plays,” he said, when asked what he needed to do to make Oakland’s 53-man roster.
And show something on special teams while impressing the quarterback.
“McCaffrey is a high-effort, high-motor guy all the time,” said Derek Carr. “Whether it’s walk-through, whether it’s real reps, high motor all the time.”
It’s a family trait, you might say, from his father to his mother Lisa, who played soccer at Stanford, to his grandfather Dave Sime, who lettered in baseball and track and field at Duke and won the silver medal in the 100-meter sprint at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, to an uncle in Scott Sime, who played fullback at Duke, to another uncle in Billy McCaffrey, who won a national basketball championship at Duke in 1991, to an aunt in Monica McCaffrey, who played basketball at Georgetown, to his brother Christian, the Heisman Trophy candidate running back down the road at Stanford this fall.
“Yeah, I visited him a couple of weeks ago,” said the older brother.
Need more connections?
Ed McCaffrey was teammates with Raiders offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave with the San Francisco 49ers and Broncos.
And Raiders assistant linebackers coach Brent Vieselmeyer was Max McCaffrey’s high school coach at Valor Christian High School outside of Denver, where a teammate was quarterback Luke Del Rio, the son of Raiders coach Jack Del Rio.
“I just have to come out here with the mentality that today’s the day,” McCaffrey said. “Today’s the last day I might ever play.”
Nah, it’s not awkward at all.