Andrew LaChapelle

Christian McCaffrey's grandpa was the fastest man on Earth, and at the 1960 Olympics he was quietly helping the CIA try to flip a Soviet athlete. That's the family tree behind this jersey swap, and the rest of it is even better. His name was Dave Sime. He showed up at Duke on a baseball scholarship as a premed kid, taught himself to sprint by reading every track book in the library, and in 1956 he tied the world record in the 100-yard dash. Sports Illustrated called him the world's fastest human and put him on the cover. At the Rome Olympics he lost the 100 meters in a photo finish and took silver. On that same trip he was working on getting a Soviet long jumper to defect. Pro baseball teams wanted him and the Detroit Lions drafted him, but he went to med school and spent his career in Miami doing more than 10,000 eye surgeries. Then his youngest daughter Lisa went to Stanford to play soccer and fell for a wide receiver named Ed McCaffrey. Ed played 13 years in the NFL and won three Super Bowls, the first one with the 49ers. Ed and Lisa had four boys, and all four played big-time college football. Max played receiver at Duke, the same school where his grandpa set records. Christian was the Heisman runner-up at Stanford. Dylan played QB at Michigan. Luke, the youngest, was a quarterback at Nebraska who transferred to Rice, switched to receiver, and got drafted 100th overall in 2024. Three of them made the NFL. Christian had played with or against every brother except Luke, which is why he said going into Monday that this game would complete the cycle. Luke has one thing on his famous brother too. He ran a 4.47 forty at the 2024 combine, and Christian ran a 4.48 back in 2017. So the fastest McCaffrey brother, by one hundredth of a second, is the kid who spent most of college playing quarterback. The 49ers won 23-17 and Christian punched in two touchdowns. After the whistle Luke was already out of his Commanders jersey while Christian pulled off the one with the captain's C. The man who said no to the Lions ended up grandpa to three NFL players. He died in January 2016, before any of them had played a down.