Christian McCaffrey on his 'whirlwind' year & why he's hoping both Super Bowl teams lose

The 49ers running back spoke to Matt Harmon on Radio Row at Super Bowl LVII about this year's big game, his first season with San Francisco and why he's excited to have a former coach back on his team. Christian joined Yahoo Sports on behalf of P&G's 'Battle of the Paddles', streaming Wednesday night on Twitch.

Video Transcript

MATT HARMON: All right. Excited now to be joined by 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey. Christian, how's it going, man.

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: Doing well. Appreciate you having me on.

MATT HARMON: Yeah, no problem. You're busy here? You got a lot got a lot booked?

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: Yeah, definitely, a lot booked, a lot booked, but not too bad.

MATT HARMON: Any question you've gotten that you're just like already sick of being asked about?

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: Yes.

MATT HARMON: So I don't ask-- so I don't ask you.

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: Yeah, you know what? First off, I appreciate you asking that. The who's going to win the Super Bowl question, I'm done answering. I don't care. I hope they both lose. So I'll get that out of the way now.

MATT HARMON: NFC Championship game, bummer of a way to end your season. But, I had a whirlwind of a year, man. How did everything feel?

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: It was a long year. Definitely a whirlwind would be a good way to describe it. Know it came with a lot of adversity, a lot of ups, a lot of downs. And I was thankful for it all. Obviously it didn't end the way we wanted it to and we're all going to be pissed off for a while about it. But it'll be good feel going in this next season.

MATT HARMON: Coming into this year, it'll be your first full offseason with the team. You got traded there in mid-season. A lot of intrigue around the team too, 49ers quarterback situation everything. You get there in the middle of the season, you play with Jimmy. Then you play with Brock. You play with a little bit Josh in the NFC Championship game before he gets hurt. What was it like transitioning between all those quarterbacks?

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: Well, it was nothing new to me. You know, I think I've played with, I want to say like 10 to 12 or 11 to 13 quarterbacks in six years now. And so I'm used to it. And one thing I learned is, it's never about anyone else. When you're on the field, you have to be completely involved in your job, and that's it.

You can never worry about anybody else. It doesn't matter who's out there. I mean, you've seen a million stories of guys coming in. You know, look at Tom Brady's story.

MATT HARMON: True.

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: If you were one of the guys who was like, oh, man. We got no shot now. And you look like a fool now. So you never know what's going to happen. It's just about doing your job, doing it at the highest level, perfecting it. Not worrying about anybody else's job and going from there. And that's really what I was focused on.

You look at the run that Brock made. He was a third string quarterback. I think it's something that gets talked about a lot, but maybe not enough. And it's a testament to Jimmy. It's a testament to that whole quarterback room and Coach Creasy and Kyle for getting those guys right. Because it is special what they strung together. And I was happy to be a part of it.

MATT HARMON: Yeah, it was cool to watch for us on the outside too. Last thing I got for you here, you mentioned you can control what you can control, focus on your role. Defensive side of the ball, though. You guys lose DeMeco Ryans, head coaching job for the Houston Texans. But got a pretty good replacement in Steve Wilks, a guy you're familiar with from Carolina.

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: I'm so fired up, man. You know, obviously DeMeco is so loved and every-- I mean guys don't have enough good things to say about him. I love Coach Wilks. I'm so fired up, man. I mean I thought Coach Wilks did such a good job in Carolina when he took over.

And you can hear it in the way the players advocate for us. And that was special. And that's real. People don't do that unless they mean it. And so I'm so fired up to have him. I can't wait to see him again.

MATT HARMON: You're here with P&G, Procter & Gamble. Tell me a little bit about what you got going on with them.

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: Yeah so tonight, 7:00 PM Eastern on Twitch, we're having what they call the Battle of the Paddles, big ping pong tournament. Myself and seven other players are going to go at it. It's a double elimination ping pong tournament. And all the fans who are viewing on Twitch, there's going to be exclusive brand deals. There's going to be a bunch of different P&G products that will be available for purchase and different deals with that. So it's fun for the fans. It's fun for us and you get to watch a highly competitive ping pong tournament.

MATT HARMON: You a good ping pong player?

CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: I'm good. I don't know how good I am. We'll find out tonight. But I'm definitely good.