31 Teams
Fans of American Football will know the name, Lamar Jackson.
Jackson is the quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens. He is, at only 27 years old, already an all-time great.
He won college football’s most prestigious award, The Heisman Trophy, as a sophomore at Louisville and as a junior, he came in 3rd.
As a rookie in the NFL, he led the Ravens to a division title while becoming the youngest NFL quarterback to start a playoff game. He was 21.
He’s the two-time reigning NFL MVP (the most prestigious award given to individual players at the pro level), and he’s having an even better year this year.
He’s the first quarterback with multiple 1,000-yard rushing seasons, the first player with 3,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards in a season, he has the most rushing yards by a quarterback in a season, he’s tied for the most career games with a perfect passer rating (remember, he’s 27), he’s tied for the most perfect passer ratings in a season, and he had the most wins by a QB by the age of 25 in the history of the league.
Oh, and he just set the record for most rushing yards by a quarterback in a career. Remember, he’s 27.
Jackson is, simply put, an absolute rockstar. He’s also, by all accounts, a great guy who does a ton for kids and fans and for the Baltimore community in general.
So how come he was drafted last in the first round of the 2018 NFL draft?
That’s right.
There are 32 teams in the NFL and 31 looked at Jackson’s college resume, his character, and his potential, and said, “No thank you.”
Now, some of those teams already had great quarterbacks and others might have had more pressing needs. Still, well over a dozen teams, all multi-billion dollar organizations (I looked this up and the least valuable franchise in the NFL is the Cincinnati Bengals - sorry, Cincy friends - and it’s worth 4.1 billion), with scouts and talent evaluators and general managers and coaches and owners, people paid exorbitant amounts of money to know who can play, missed on Jackson.
In fact, four quarterbacks were drafted before Jackson in that draft. 1 is out of the league, 2 have been traded multiple times (though they’re both playing well for their 4th teams), and 1, Josh Allen, is great as well (though not as good as Jackson).
I believe in experts and expertise in general. But remember, the experts miss sometimes. In fact, I’d bet that some people with a fraction of the expertise of an NFL general manager “missed” on you at some point. I’d bet someone told you to try something different, that you weren’t good enough, or that you should just give up.
Listen to feedback, but know that a lot of really smart people passed on one of the greatest ever. Keep pushing forward, and remember that when others doubt you. Remember it when that causes you to doubt yourself.
