Before there was Christian McCaffrey and his brothers, there was Ed McCaffrey, their father.
Ed, a wide receiver out of Stanford, was a third-round pick of the New York Giants in 1991, and one of his veteran teammates was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor, the legendary and feared linebacker.
In a recent appearance on Shannon Sharpe's Club Shay Shay podcast, McCaffrey, who played just three seasons for the Giants before embarking on a long and productive career with the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos, recounted an incident involving Taylor in 1992, when Taylor head-slapped Giants first-round pick Derek Brown, breaking his facemask and leaving Brown bloodied.
McCaffrey thought Taylor "might be crazy for real."
Brown was the
14th overall pick in the 1993 NFL draft out of Notre Dame. The Giants had gotten lucky several years before with another Fighting Irish tight end by the name of Mark Bavaro. Brown wasn't anything like Bavaro, however.
The incident took place on Brown's first day at Giants training camp at Fairleigh Dickinson University shortly after he signed his rookie deal worth $4 million over four years. He had held out the first nine days of camp, and perhaps that stuck in the craw of some veterans who were sweating bullets out on the field in the summer sun.
Brown got a quick introduction to the NFL that day by one of its fiercest defenders -- Taylor.
"First play, yeah, welcome to the league," the 6-foot-6, 252-pound Brown said at the time. "He more or less blocked me. My facemask was already a wide one, and he just widened it a little more.""I'm a little behind," Brown said after that practice, "but I knew most of the plays. My immediate goal is to make it through tomorrow's practice."
He did, but his Giants' career was an overall disappointment. Brown played in 45 games for the Giants over three seasons, starting seven. He totaled just 11 receptions for 87 yards with no touchdowns. Brown missed the entire 1995 season after a hit in a preseason game left him with a collapsed lung, bruised ribs, spleen and kidney injuries.
Brown was left unprotected in the 1996 NFL expansion draft and was selected by Tom Coughlin's Jacksonville Jaguars.
Brown would go on to play two years for the Jags before moving on to Oakland and ending his career with the Arizona Cardinals in 2000.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Ed McCaffrey shares wild Lawrence Taylor story: 'Might be for real crazy'
