The short road to the NFL is to be a 4-5 star recruit, with a ton of talent that everyone can see, play for a top 10 school, and ultimately to be a top draft pick that teams are going to protect. For everyone else there is a long road. The long road is to play for a G5 team, or even FCS, Division 2 or 3 team, and be a star, but not enough of one to be drafted. Of those, the best end up and UDFA, and the next group gets a mini-camp invite, the longest road of all.

For those with a mini-camp invite, they get a one weekend opportunity to impress one team's coaches. They might be competing against 20 others, all trying to get the coaches' eyes. Of those 20, at most 1-2 will do well enough to get an UDFA contract, which wins them the right to continue their quest to make the NFL.

If they get an UDFA contract, whether directly after the draft, or as a result of a mini-camp, they still face long odds. They become part of a 90 player roster, which will be cut to 44. Keep in mind, though, that probably 35 of the final top 44 are more or less known before fall camp, and will be the prior year's starters and key backups, players acquired in the off season with big expectations, and perhaps the top 3-5 draft choices. Thus, the real odds are that you have about 55 players competing for 9 spots, plus a few more on the practice team.

We've seen a couple Ohio players take the short route, being drafted in the first few rounds, notably Mitchell and Basham. We've seen a later round choice earn a spot, Carrie. We've seen some middle round choices make the roster, and hang on a few years, before being out of the league. We've also seen some Ohio players take the long way. The best example of that was Landon Cohen, who was in and out of the league, and played for several teams, and who kept earning a chance to continue. Casey Sayles seems to be another taking that route. He had and UDFA contract with Los Angeles, nearly made the practice team, but got another shot by playing well for Birmingham, and who has another UDFA contract this year, with Pittsburgh, and he has a shot to make the cut this time.

Can White or Lowery make the big step from a UDFA contract to the final 44? Can AJ, Nelson, or Croutch make the huge jump from a mini-camp to a UDFA contract, and, and them make the second jump from UDFA to the final roster, or at least to the practice squad? We shall see, but I enjoyed watching them, and I wish them luck. They have worked hard, and earned this chance. I hope they make the most of it.

A few months ago there was a show on HBO,forgot the name,that followed 4 former college football players.

One guy was a former RU player who got invited to a mini camp.

He was doing O.K.,till he got "dinged' at the end of the camp.

Never heard another word from that or any other NFL team.

It really showed just how tenuous your chances of even getting to camp are
for marginal players.

In the case of this kid,he put all his eggs into the pro football basket,so
he really doesn't have any other marketable job skills.

Its cut to a 53 man roster - but your overall premise is spot on - there are only a handful - 6-9 spots truly open. The taxi squad is the best hope for many - and a good entry into the league - basically (hopefully) a season long tryout.

That's what I get, posting at 1:27 AM. ;)

Thanks for the correction.

The sad thing is too many players can't let get go of the ghost. I remember hearing this story in Columbus on the Fan. One of the guest hosts, a former NFL player was talking about how some guys might make the practice squad for a few weeks and then get cut. Sadly, they take a temp type job at a gym to stay in shape in the hopes of getting a tryout next year. Well next year never comes because they are never called back. The repeat the cycle for several years. The former NFL player said it is tough to let go of the dream, the perks, the women, the parties etc.

Some time ago when I was out in LA there was a story about a guy living in a van who 25 years ago got bit parts in some major films, but still hangs on to the dream living in his fan with a cellphone following the next big lead. He lives in the past with no retirement etc.

We who have played sports know how tough it is to face reality. I realized in high school I was never going to be a college athlete, so I focused on more long term pursuits. However, for some who have serious athletic talent, but talent that falls just a smidgen short of a professional career, it is a hard thing to face. I just hope everyone tries to follow their dream, but also has a career to fall back on should the dream not materialize.

I would argue that success in life is often related to luck, ambition, talent, and who you know. In some realms, this includes having the foresight to be born into the right socioeconomic class of people. In terms of sports, I would argue that we are talking about natural endowment, strength, speed, endurance, luck, intelligence, the extent of positive exposure, and having access to the best training, coaching, and nutrition/supplements imaginable. When talking about participating in a team sport, I would argue that you are also talking about being lucky or shrewd enough to insert yourself in a unique system that allows one to make the absolute most of their natural ability. That's a lot of factors that need to line up just right. Even more complicated, as was pointed out recently in a sports article that I read (the writer of which escapes my memory right now), is that there seems to be very few degrees of difference between one athlete and another at the highest level of each sports. This means that anyone of the above factors mentioned can derail the train, so to speak.

At the same time, everyone has a choice of what they do with the proverbial cards that are dealt them. Since we are born with nothing, and will leave this life with nothing, who can truly judge the unique path that each man and woman takes through out their lives. I remember someone telling me that they play the lottery every day not because they really believe that they can win it, but because the possibility that they can is what keeps them going from day to day.

If the actor living in a van for twenty-five years with a cell phone and the dream of still making it big were an athlete. I would suspect that he parks the van near the beach (a view many of us could not afford), spends his days working out and in good health, and having a dream that keeps him inspired and facing each day with the belief that something special is about to happen. As the famed journalist/writer Studs Terkel once said, "the last thing that should go is hope." As I recall, he said this shortly before his death in his nineties.

As I learned from my late mentor, the brilliant psychologist, James Hillman, one should fully activate the five senses on a daily basis, and thus push beyond that. If the smell of cut grass, the feeling of pumped muscles, the sound of cracking pads, and the sight of toned and finely tuned athletes going head to head is your thing, I would say grab the fruit, and keep living your NFL dream until you find something else that captivates you as much.

Heard a nice interview with TJ Carrie today on Cleveland radio. You can tell he really appreciates and has taken advantage of his opportunity.

https://923thefan.radio.com/media/audio-channel/browns-cb...

When you are 18 you are a man. If you play a sport that is televised and millions, no billions, are being made off the sweat of your brow, there is a grave injustice.

College football is a curious economy, indeed. It's a huge business that operates at a large net loss. A few schools make money, but the vast majority lose money, and lots of it, especially if you include the female athletes that are mandated by Title IX to offset the male athletes playing football, which you really need to do, since, if you eliminated football, you'd eliminate the other sports as well. The huge losses currently get passed to the general student body in the form of fees. Meanwhile, the athletes are "paid" with room, board, medical care, and training, plus an education that not all of them value. The "pay" is the same for stars and backups.

At this point, if there are changes to the economics, they will probably be unfavorable to the athletes. Probably mostly due to the concussion issues, football is declining in popularity, and declining fairly quickly. The TV networks used to make a ton on college football, but not so much anymore, and they are cutting the size of TV deals. Meanwhile, the general student population is showing resistance to the "fees" that support sports. So, you have declining attendance, declining TV revenue, and resistance to fees. The net result is going to be athletic departments struggling to keep up business as usual.

It will be interesting to see what college football looks like a decade from now; I think there will be quite a few changes, but I don't know what they will be.

This is just silly and gross over-generalization. It's made with the assumption that all football programs are like alabama and all basketball programs are like Kentucky. There are 130 division 1a teams. Who's making billions? Who's making any profits? Hardly anyone. Do people really give any thought to the costs of running a D1 football program, even on the cheap? Scholarships for 85 players (about 1.7 million per year per public school, more for private) Coaches, doctors, field maintenance/replacement, stadium upkeep, giant mother freaking scoreboards, equipment, travel/lodging, utilities, security, practice fields, insurance? You can talk paying players all you want, but in most cases, it's the old blood from a turnip situation. A mid-major's ability to support D1 football is quite precarious.

Is it any different than the student who works their way through college? I sure as hell would have wanted a free ride with all the perks and bennies rather than scraping by during my years at Ohio. The only grave injustice is the players are there to play sports and have no value for an education. The ones sticking around for 4 years to get their degree are the true student-athletes. The ones leaving for the pros after a year or two are mercenaries looking for the big money. "Playing school" or getting an education is the least of their concerns.

You're absolutely right.

The problem is people get REALLY MAD when you use this exact same set of facts to tell them why publicly-funded colleges shouldn't have athletics at all.

You can't argue college athletics is a horrible financial proposition and then argue we need to keep funding them at the expense of the financial viability of a college. As if it were as important as the actual mission of the university.

Well, you can. It's just a logic pretzel.

"This whole system is a terrible financial sinkhole! We can't pay the players! There's no money! But we definitely should keep using taxpayer and student fee dollars to keep funding it!"

There are other ways the finances could work. For example, rather than scholarships, Ohio could treat the players as employees. Rather than giving them each a $30k for tuition, room and board, they could pay they each player about $18,000, which, after taxes, would pay about half their room and board. Then, of course, the University would also have to pay payroll taxes, plus a very high work comp rate, plus some benefits such as health insurance. The net result would be that it would cost the University about $30k a player, about what it costs now, but the players would be only paid half enough to pay for tuition and room and board, and they would have to come up with the rest out of pocket. A few stars might be paid more, and be better off, but the vast majority of players would be worse off.