Last month, Bucky Brooks (former NFL player and now sport analyst) tweeted some interesting facts about making it in the NFL.
Essentially Bucky mentioned that 66,313 athletes play college football yet only 300 ever make it to an NFL team. Those who do play, only play an average of 6 years – at year 2 only 72% of those drafted remain active and by year 3 this drops to just 65% remaining active, meaning for 35% of players their career is over.
He also made the point that by 25 years old, most NFL players have no more economic use for the only skill they ever developed. Which is pretty scary when you look at it that way! You can read more statistics like this on the NFL Players website.
What I like about American football is that education is key and all players are encouraged to gain a degree. At least going down this route, even if you don’t make it to an NFL roster, you have a degree that stands you in good stead and can always try and pursue others routes in the NFL such as officiating, coaching, analysing/reporting, or even going in to a team itself to be involved with public relations, marketing or community relations.