Delightful Lisa McCaffrey interview enlivens 49ers Thursday Night Football beatdown
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Amazon’s Thursday Night Football options include a Manningcast-style alternate feed with Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer, bringing on boldface names for in-game interviews.
It’ll be hard for any of those shows to top Thursday’s interview with Lisa McCaffrey, the former Stanford soccer player and mother of 49ers star Christian. She ranked her sons, ripped 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan’s purported babysitting, and dropped an F-bomb on live TV (again). It was easily the most dynamic part of a 49ers blowout-in-progress of the Seahawks.
McCaffrey was brought in toward the end of the first half, right as the Niners were starting an offensive drive. Though the broadcast cut in right as she let out a huge nerve-releasing exhale, she could not have sounded better prepared for the interview as she began with a joke at her son’s expense.
A graphic had just flashed onto the screen that detailed McCaffrey’s statistical accomplishments this season, and had him dressed up in a lab coat in front of chalkboards. This prompted Lisa to say, “You know he’s a college dropout, right?” (McCaffrey and her husband, former Denver Broncos receiver Ed, met at Stanford, where Christian attended for only three years.)
Next up was the infamous anecdote about Shanahan purportedly babysitting Christian as a teen in the 1990s, when Kyle’s father Mike was coaching Ed on the Broncos. Lisa McCaffrey confirmed Kyle Shanahan’s longtime stance that it was really Kyle’s sister who babysat the future 49er.
“Thank god for Kyle’s sister, because she’s the responsible one,” McCaffrey said before pausing to see whether Christian got enough yards for a first down. “She’s the responsible one, so Christian is still alive to play the game because of her, not Kyle. If it was just Kyle, there would have been some danger.”
The offensive drive ended in a punt, and while the Niners were on defense, Kremer asked Lisa about how she, according to Ed, rates her kids every week. At the time she was asked, she had Dylan McCaffrey first, Max last, and Luke and Christian tied for second. (Dylan and Max played and coached, respectively, for Ed at the University of Northern Colorado before Ed was fired last month.)
That changed during the Niners’ next offensive drive, when Christian punched in a short touchdown.
As the small celebration from Lisa began, she told the broadcast duo, “I want to say a bad word in a good way.”
Kremer gave McCaffrey the green light, leading to Lisa saying “f—k yea,” much to the shock of Storm.
This appears to be the standard Lisa McCaffrey celebration line, as she was caught yelling the same phrase when Christian scored a touchdown against the Chargers that put away a game earlier this season.
Watching Christian McCaffrey suit up for the Niners this season has been entertaining as hell for Niners fans and neutrals alike. The only thing that makes that experience better is having his mom narrate it.