One does not just walk into the NFL.
Being a rookie in the NFL is no day at the beach. You’ve just gone through intense media coverage and team evaluations, the draft, microphones in your face all day, and that’s all before you take your first snap or run your first wind sprint at rookie mini-camp.
Well, once you get to camp, whatever life you thought you had changes overnight. Your summer becomes a period of rigorous schedules, complex learning curves, and significant personal adjustment.
Congratulations, You’re in the NFL. Say Goodbye to Everyone You Know
Shedeur Sanders recently shared what his life has been like since he joined the Cleveland Browns.
“I’ve mainly just been focusing on the team, everybody that’s currently around me, the coaches on the team,” Sanders told “SportsCasting.” “I haven’t really been on my phone much or talking to many people. I really don’t even talk to my family,” Sanders admitted. “It’s one of those situations where I just have to lock in, stay focused on what’s present now.”
One of the first things players go through is the NFL’s Rookie Transition Program. They get lectured on the league’s culture, expectations, media responsibilities, league policies, player benefits, mental health resources, and, most importantly, financial education.
In the bad old days, players were left to figure everything out independently. In the bad old days of the 1990s, high draft picks who scored huge contracts were often broke before they left the league. Less than 15% of modern players spend over 50% of their rookie-year salary.
Once that’s out of the way, it’s time to learn the playbook. It is notoriously intricate, containing hundreds of formations, routes, and terminology pages. Imagine memorizing a 1970s-era phonebook’s amount of information and applying it on the field.
Forget partying. Your life now revolves around not just book work but also living in the gym and watching what you eat. If they can afford it, players will hire personal chefs. The ones who can’t will have to spend an inordinate amount of time tracking their caloric intake while balancing it against rigorous workout schedules.
Rookies also have to conquer the mental aspect, and players like Sanders may be better prepared than others because he was raised to live this life. For others, the challenges of handling professional pressure and managing their time will be high hurdles.
The life of a rookie looks glamorous on draft night, but by the time they are in the dog days of summer, there’s no glamour—just blood, sweat, and tears.