Carolina Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey is an NFL player. He's a professional man with a job that pays millions of dollars. But he's not allowed to do his job at his place of business just yet, because of an NFL rule that mandates that underclassmen can't report to the team facility until their school year ends.
McCaffrey went to Stanford, where rather than semesters, they use the quarter system. That means the school year doesn't end until the middle of June.
Christian McCaffrey told us he cannot go into the Panthers facility until mid-June when Stanford semester ends.
— Paul Pabst (@PaulPabst) May 12, 2017
Straight up: This rule is silly, and it affects players other than those from Stanford. UCLA, Oregon State, Oregon and more use it as well.
As mentioned earlier, McCaffrey is now a grown man with a job. He's not a student anymore. He shouldn't have to communicate with team officials via Skype, as he told the "Dan Patrick Show" he is doing, according to Pro Football Talk. He should be busy figuring out how to mesh with Cam Newton, where he fits in the offense and more while actually working with his quarterback and his coaches. Instead, he has to stay away and pretend to be something he's not.
The NFL understandably doesn't want to seem like it's encouraging dropouts, but this is putting teams that already feel they're behind the eight-ball practice-wise under the new CBA at even more of a disadvantage. It could also potentially harm some players in the draft process if a team is debating between two players it values equally and decides to take the one that can practice with the team right away. The disadvantages of the rule simply outweigh the benefits.
