He Was ‘Prospect X,’ the NFL Draft’s Deepest Sleeper

Published April 29, 2020 on Sports Illustrated

At the beginning of the sixth round, X puts his phone to his ear. Mom quiets everyone down and starts recording on her handheld camera. But it’s just a position coach calling to wish him good luck—X calls off mom’s camera with a shake of his hand. He gets several more calls like it throughout the afternoon, all from NFL scouts or coaches he’s developed a relationship with. Nobody says the words, We’re going to draft you, but coaches from the Eagles, Saints and Panthers tell him, we’re trying to figure something out. I’m hammering for them to draft you. His girlfriend’s phone is now full of videos that were all false alarms. Still, X believes.

Philadelphia, a team that’s shown a lot of interest in him, picks another player at his position with their first sixth-round selection. It’s fine, plenty more teams like me and still have a need, X tells himself. But then Baltimore, San Francisco, and the Chargers—all teams that had expressed interest—do the same with their sixth- and seventh-round picks. X looks at the players drafted instead of him. They went to bigger schools than him, but other than that, are undersized just like him. Now he’s feeling anxious. Damn, I guess they were just blowing smoke up my ass.