Christian McCaffrey's 3 Brothers: All About Max, Dylan and Luke

Mar. 15, 2025

Left: Christian McCaffrey celebrates after the NFC Championship NFL football game against the Detroit Lions on January 28, 2024 in Santa Clara, California. Right: Christian McCaffrey and his brothers.Photo:Cooper Neill/Getty ; Christian McCaffrey/Instagram

Cooper Neill/Getty ; Christian McCaffrey/Instagram

Christian McCaffrey’s football fame runs in the family.

The San Francisco 49ers running back is the son of three-time Super Bowl champion Ed McCaffrey and Lisa McCaffrey. The couple’s three other sons, Max, Luke and Dylan, are also very active in the football world.

Max is a former wide receiver who played college football for the Duke Blue Devils and signed with the Oakland Raiders as an undrafted free agent in 2016. He is currently an offensive assistant for the Miami Dolphins.

Christian has reflected on how he and his brothers felt the effects of their father’s legacy when they were younger.

“Growing up I was Ed’s kid, we were always Ed’s sons and so in a way, that was an advantage for us because we got to experience a little bit of that already,” Christian toldNBC Sportsin 2023. “I think myself and three of my brothers, we all kind of wanted to branch off and create our own name.”

Now that they’re getting older, the brothers come together to support each other. When Christian married Olivia Culpoon June 29, 2024, in her home state of Rhode Island, Luke, Dylan and Max served as groomsmen.

Here’s everything to know about Christian McCaffrey’s brothers: Max, Dylan and Luke.

Christian has three brothers

Christian McCaffrey with his brother Max McCaffrey and his mother Lisa McCaffrey following the Pac-12 Championship Game on December 5, 2015 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.David Madison/Getty

David Madison/Getty

Maxwell James — or Max as he is more affectionately known — is the eldest of Ed and Lisa McCaffrey’s four children. He was born in Castle Rock, Colo., on May 17, 1994.

The couple welcomed their second child, Christian Jackson, on June 7, 1996. Dylan followed almost three years later, on March 25, 1999. Luke, who was born on April 2, 2001, is the youngest of the bunch.

Their father is a Super Bowl champion

Ed McCaffrey #87 of the Denver Broncos makes a catch in the Super Bowl XXXII game between the Green Bay Packers v the Denver Broncos on January 25, 1998.Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Ed was the New York Giants' third-round pick (83rd overall) in the 1991 NFL Draft. Throughout his 13-year career, he was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1998 and won three Super Bowl rings. Before his illustrious football career, Ed excelled at high school basketball, even leading his team to two state titles in 1984 and 1986.

Their mother Lisa was also an athlete

Luke McCaffrey, Max McCaffrey, Lisa McCaffrey, Christian McCaffrey, and Dylan McCaffrey.Lisa McCaffrey/Instagram

Lisa McCaffrey/Instagram

Lisa McCaffrey played women’s soccer at Stanford for three seasons. She also excelled at tennis and track. While Christian, Luke, Dylan and Max may have gotten their football acumen from their dad, they attribute their exceptional athletic abilities to Lisa.

“I mean, if you want to look at genes alone, my mom ran, I think, a 4.5 40-yard dash pregnant with my brother,” Luke joked ina 2024  interview for the Washington Commanders website. “So that’s kind of always our answer when someone asks us, ‘’Where’d you get your athleticism from?’ It’s immediate, all of us will answer ‘our mom.’ ”

For Lisa, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. In the 1950s, her father, Dave Sime, was widely believed to have been thefastest man in the world. While a student at Duke, Sime was named to the All-American baseball and track teams. At the 1960 Rome Olympics, he ran the 100-meter dash and took home silver.

Christian McCaffrey and Luke McCaffrey.Lisa McCaffrey/Instagram

“I can’t tell you, as a coach, how hard it is to have to take car rides home with your son, who plays for you, and corrects all of the mistakes you make,” Ed jokedin an interview withThe Denver Postin 2018. “Any time I made a bad call at practice or in a game — the pressure it put on me! I couldn’t get away from it. Football, football, football."

He continued, “But I’m so proud of Luke, as a son obviously, but he was a leader for Valor football … he was the first one to every practice and the last one to leave.”

Christian McCaffrey and family.Max McCaffrey/Instagram

Max McCaffrey/Instagram

Dylan started playing college football at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh but left the team amid the COVID-19 pandemic to enter the transfer portal.

Max got engaged in 2023

Max McCaffrey and Kathleen Messier.Max McCaffrey/Instagram

The McCaffrey family had another major engagement in 2023. On June 17, 2023, Maxproposed to Kathleen Messierin Hilton Head, S.C.

According to the University of Northern Colorado website, Messierjoined the Northern Colorado Football staffas the director of operations in July 2021. Max also spent three seasons on staff at the University of Northern Colorado from 2020 to 2022.

Both Max and Messier are also alums of Duke University — she graduated with an economics degree in 2015 and he graduated a year later with a degree in psychology.

source: people.com