This year’s NFL Draft is the culmination of a new era that dawned three years ago in college football. While this new age has been extremely detrimental to college football, it will make this year’s draft, and the many drafts in years to come, all the more entertaining for NFL teams and fanbases.
Money has heavily affected college sports since the much-addressed and long-decried “Name, Image, and Likeness” era with its thinly-veiled pay-for-play contracts and absence of transfer rules, but NFL teams are surely very happy about it. While it’s cost them some late-round talent — many potential picks stay in college for NIL deals more lucrative than the NFL rookie contracts they would sign — the prior presence of money, influence, and mobility gives NFL teams sorely needed context for their top early-round targets.
In previous eras of NFL football, draft day was a dangerous time. Franchises had some idea of how their picks would handle fame, as there was fame enough in college football. What they lacked was the equally important knowledge of how their prospects would change when plucked from the modest financial state of their collegiate athletic careers and faced with the volatile, big-dollar market of professional sports.
Money changes people — and for NFL franchises, every player’s ability to make money in a different jersey does a number on athletes: Terrell Owens, Brett Favre, and Richard Sherman are prime examples. NFL teams had to wager a guess on how millions of dollars might alter the priorities of the dedicated student-athletes they were interested in.
Franchises would often steer clear of players with volatile streaks like Johnny Manziel or LeGarrette Blount, and of braggarts like Brian Bosworth. Occasionally, there were teams that would take risks on troublemakers like Jameis Winston or Jim McMahon, and on peacocks like Deion Sanders. And with players like Baker Mayfield and Troy Aikman, it ran deeper: could they adapt to a new coach and system? Could they gel with the roster around them? Could they be trusted to remain loyal to their team?
Some panned out — earning their living on the gridiron refined them. Some did not, and the teams which selected and paid them rue the days they did so. But those days are gone now. The dawn of NIL and the unlimited transfer portal in college football gives organizations a great understanding of what they’ll be signing up for on draft day. Draft prospects today spent their collegiate careers in the pro football free trial that college football has become.
Some, like Boise State University’s Ashton Jeanty, did so in humility and silent confidence, earning respect from loyal fans, like a future Green Bay Packer. Others, like the University of Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, did so in an unapologetically flamboyant manner, creating and exciting new audiences, like a future Dallas Cowboy. NFL teams got to see it all: Will Johnson’s undying loyalty, Cam Ward’s stalwart drive to win, Cam Skattebo’s relentless heart, and Kyle McCord’s unflinching response to derision.
Despite the effect that this seismic shift has had on college football, pro teams will rejoice at what it has unveiled: definitive answers as to who is obtainable, who is adaptable, who is agreeable, and who is loyal. At long last, when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announces who’s on the clock, an organization’s only guesswork will be whether players can match up against professional opponents. The resultant surprises, sleepers, and slides will delight viewers.
