Published April 30, 2019 on Sports Illustrated
Dessert is a marble sheet cake decorated with a map of the United States. A red dot marks the cities of each of the six NFL teams he visited with during the pre-draft process: Green Bay, New York (Jets), San Francisco, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Cleveland.
It’s now almost 3 p.m. Saturday and the sixth round of the draft is about to start. He and his significant other are getting nervous now. Sixty-five people are here for his draft party, waiting in the back room of a sports bar, and all eyes in the room are on him. He keeps his phone in his pocket and takes it out only a few times to check the time. There has already been one false alarm—a former teammate called to check in. He’s purposely trying not to watch the NFL Network broadcast, knowing that will just make the time go slower. He can’t help but let the thought creep in, What if I don’t get drafted?