Most, if not all, of the more than 250 players that NFL teams will draft later this week will have something in common: They are college students.
For draft eligibility, the NFL requires that players “have been out of high school for at least three years and must have used up their college eligibility before the start of the next college football season.” There are rare instances in which teams sign players who didn’t attend college as undrafted free agents, although those players are outliers and don’t tend to receive big contracts.
This means, generally, that players not only have to play football without receiving a six- or seven-figure salary so they have a shot at being drafted, but also must spend years of their life as a college student. That makes the NFL yet another example of a profession with what essentially amounts to an unnecessary education requirement.
Does taking a class on gender studies, sociology, or Eastern religion make someone a better football player? Does sitting in a classroom help someone throw, kick, punt, or long-snap a football better? Does it help them catch, block, or tackle? Does it make them faster, stronger, more flexible, and less injury-prone? No.
And yet, the NFL insists on a draft system in which going through all of this is the only feasible option for most players to have a shot at playing in the league even though it has nothing to do with playing football. Some people are great athletes but aren’t good students, and not having the GPA to go to college may prevent them from having the opportunity to play at the next level, crushing their chances of going pro.
What the NFL should care about is whether or not people can play football and if the player is good for the game or not. The NFL could develop a minor league system, like the NHL, NBA, and MLB have, expand the length of its draft, and make anyone 18 or older eligible for it. This would also benefit the NFL because players could do a better job preparing to play in the NFL if they didn’t have schooling eating up some of their time.
This issue goes well beyond football. We see stringent occupational licensing requirements that even require hair-braiders to attend 1,000 hours of cosmetology school in many states, even though such schools don’t teach hair-braiding. Meanwhile, many white-collar jobs list bachelor’s degree requirements, which is a major barrier to entry. It’s the skills that should matter, not a piece of paper that, in some cases, costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Former President Donald Trump’s administration deserves credit when it comes to this. Trump signed an executive order in June 2020 to make the federal government prioritize skills over degrees when hiring new employees. Good. States and municipalities should do the same so they’re not overlooking talented people.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
