The NFL Draft disses HBCU football players yet again...
Get the Point!
Another year, another weekend of NFL Draft disappointment for HBCU football players, coaches, fans, and supporters!
Isaiah Bolden (Jackson State), a defensive back, was selected in the 7th round of the NFL Draft by the New England Patriots. Bolden was the only player from an HBCU to hear his name called this weekend.
Like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick—only to yank it away at the last minute and sending him flying through the air—it seems like each and every year, I get my hopes up that talented young men who played at the same schools that produced NFL legends like Ken Riley, Buck Buchanan, Jerry Rice, and Walter Payton, to name a few, would get the chance to hear their names called on ESPN before launching their pro careers.
But alas, since the late 1970's, those chances have been few and far between!
It seems as if there is a one step forward, two step backwards reality for HBCU football players with professional level talent. I mean, one year after four players were drafted from HBCU's, including Detroit Lions breakout star defensive end/linebacker James Houston, the fact that only one player was selected this year—Jackson State's Isaiah Bolden—is shameful.
That shame stems from the reality that Bolden was not the only 2023 HBCU player considered a prospect following a much publicized HBCU combine, HBCU All-Star game circuits, the Senior Bowl and yes, an NFL combine that found the following lauded by scouts and former players alike:
Isaiah Land, LB, Florida A&M
Mark Evans, Tackle, Arkansas P.B
Aubrey Miller, LB, Jackson State
Xavier Smith, WR, Florida A&M
Shaq Davis, WR, S.C. State
Dallas Daniels, WR, Jackson State
Kemari Averett, TE, Bethune Cookman
Emanuel Wilson, RB, Fort Valley State
Jadakis Bonds, WR, Hampton
Isaiah Land (Florida A&M) and Aubrey Miller (Jackson State) were two of the top performers at a Senior Bowl that was filled with players from Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and the like, as the duo dominated the entire week and during the game.
While these nine other HBCU stars have already signed free agent contracts (or will in the coming days), the disappointment for them—and all of HBCU America—is palpable.
Former Florida A&M stars Isaiah Land and Xavier Smith have signed with the Dallas Cowboys and LA Rams, respectively.
If you are like me and spend any time on social media news sites like ESPN's Facebook page, then you have read any number of comments that range from idiotic to irrepressibly inane that suggest that modern day Black College football talent is inferior—which is a whole lie!
The best recent example of this is James Houston, the Jackson State sixth round draft pick who rode the bench for the Detroit Lions last year until late in the season, when he exploded on the scene and finished with eight sacks—and praise from analysts who questioned how the Lions coaching staff didn't realize that they had a whole star riding the bench?
Rookie sensation James Houston (Jackson State) after sacking Jacksonville Jaguars star Trevor Lawrence last Fall…
The same held true for Markquese Bell, the former FAMU star safety who was not drafted last year, but made the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent—and added his ball hawking, bone jarring skills to an improving Cowboys defense.
Despite going undrafted, Markquese Bell (Florida A&M), shown intercepting a pass in a game against the Seattle Seahawks, was a rookie standout for the Dallas Cowboys last year…
One need not be a genius to realize what's going on; the NFL develops talent far cheaper through undrafted free agency than they do through their annual Draft, with many of those free agents hailing from HBCU's and smaller PWI’s. This is a form of apartheid in which most of the top draft picks hail from the richest predominantly white institutions.
It's not solely an HBCU thing: Keaton Mitchell, son of former NFL star Anthony Mitchell and my good friend, former USA Olympics track star Kaye Michelle Pritchett, was a dominant running back at East Carolina who signed last night as an undrafted free agent with his father's old team, the Baltimore Ravens. Good luck, nephew!
Yes, the bulk of these players are Black, too, but even Stevie Wonder could see that if you're a talented Black athlete and play for, say, Nick Saban of Alabama or Kirby Smart of Georgia, that you stand a greater chance of being selected early—and rewarded with a lucrative eight figures contract—as opposed to the league minimums that late round and undrafted free agents receive.
And while draft picks are not guaranteed a roster spot, their pathway is a little less fraught with peril than rookie free agents who must claw and scratch for practice reps in camp.
30 years ago, Wally Williams, a Brotha that I grew up with who dominated while playing football for our Jake Gaither Park Giants, his Rickards High School Redskins, and the FAMU Rattlers, went undrafted before signing as a free agent with the Cleveland Browns. Williams would later play nearly 15 years—and make multiple millions of dollars—for the Browns, Baltimore Ravens, and New Orleans Saints before retiring!
My Tallahassee Southside homeboy Wally Williams, a member of the FAMU Sports Hall of Fame, shown pulling to block for the Saints during his long NFL career…
The simple reality is that there are thousands of college players who will never play in the NFL, just like there are tens of thousands of high school players who never get the chance to play in college. Indeed, every boy who puts on pads knows that the day will come when they will never dress out again, which is why any player who makes it to an NFL camp, be it drafted or as an undrafted free agent, is in rare company and should be commended!
But still, I can't sit here this Sunday morning and let the NFL Brass think that intelligent Black folks don't see through their draft day apartheid that discriminates heavily against HBCU's! Here's hoping that the undrafted free agents from our storied institutions "ball out" and earn huge second contracts after their rookie agreements expire, and that we keep the pressure on so that HBCU players can sit in the green room and grace the stage with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell 'nem, too!