pic.twitter.com/zeGcGtWlPy

— Christian McCaffrey (@CMccaffrey5) December 19, 2016

Following Leonard Fournette, who’s already weathered plenty of injuries and projects to be a higher draft pick at a position with a brief shelf life in the NFL, Christian McCaffrey has decided to skip the team’s bowl game to avoid injury begin draft prep. I don’t know exactly what to think about this, but it seems fair to me to understand the decision and at the same time not respect it.

I’d probably feel different if McCaffrey said he didn’t want to risk getting hurt. What’s he really doing toward draft preparedness between now and New Year’s Eve eve?

I also doubt either player makes the same decision if his team was playing in the Sugar or the Rose Bowl or the College Football Playoff, which points out how generally pointless bowls are. Still, it makes me wonder if the bowls either this year or in the future — since this is now the start of a trend — would make different selections if they knew ahead of time a star player was going to do this.

There’s very little about Stanford that’s appealing to a bowl game in El Paso, Texas, outside of McCaffrey and the attached tick in attendance. The presence of the latter is affected by the absence of the former. Put it this way: The Cardinal won nine games and were the sixth pick in the Pac-12 order, the last of six eligible teams.

Let’s say Cal or Arizona State finished 6-6 and not 5-7 and the Sun knew McCaffrey would not play in the game. Would the Sun want Cal or Arizona State, both entertaining of nothing else, over?

But that’s not the biggest issue. Television is the biggest issue, and CBS has a noon game on a Friday between UNC and Stanford, and the biggest story is that the game won’t have one of the best and most must-see players in the game.

I don’t know that there’s a fix. (I also don’t know that it’s too big of a deal.)

The bowls can flex some power in conjunction with the television networks, since the networks literally run the games. Right now, there’s no way to deal with this. The bowl picks are made the day after the end of the regular season, and few players announce they’re going to go pro before then. No one’s going to bow out of a bowl before the bowls are announced.

I suppose one possible solution would be to make the bowl picks a week later than. Let the CFP have its Sunday show. That’s four teams. The others can wait. Let the players who are eligible for the draft decided whether they will or won’t play in whatever bowl they make.