A Letter to the Undrafted Free Agents

I probably could have called it a day right then and there and just cut my losses. It’s not like I had a spare pair of cleats in my gym bag.

To Every Guy Who Went Undrafted This Weekend,

I never got invited to the NFL combine. I had some decent stats at Hofstra, but I was an undersized wide receiver who wasn’t exactly a burner coming out of what was then called Division I-AA football. Not really the formula for stardom. I was never delusional about my odds of making it. I always knew a career in football was a long shot, but I wanted to give it an honest try nonetheless. I just figured it beat working in an office for a living. Because my combine invite must have regretfully got lost in the mail, the spring after I graduated from college in 1995, my dad drove me to Baltimore for a CFL tryout. Looking back, the whole thing was kind of a joke. You had to pay a couple of hundred bucks for the opportunity to wait in line and catch passes from a few guys who were described to us as quarterbacks.