Re: American info needed
Soul,
Those late bloomers, the kids that only played a year or two after coming to the country, or who never played ball until high-school(age 13-19 roughly, depending…) or who come from a smaller school after having grade issues, They still get picked. year in and year out. there’s 250+ picks in the draft, and honestly, the situation you get picked to(team/scheme/etc) is more important than when you get picked. Yes, those first couple round draft picks are safer from being cut from the team, they generally are more well polished players as well though. Not to mention after the draft, every team signs a bunch of players that didn’t get drafted, and some of them stick past training camp.
Works like this. Until highschool it’s generally local pee-wee league stuff outside of schools. Some players are recruited by colleges as early as 8th grade though. Then school team in HS, they get recruited by colleges(or not) pick a school and either get a scholarship, or attempt to “walk on” to the football team in practices. Then they hope they play enough to get noticed by scouts from a pro-team to get drafted. Most don’t. They can either end up in myriad semi-pro leagues across the country, go to canada for the CFL, or keep plugging away and sending tape to pro-teams to try and get tryouts.
Sadly, 32 teams of less than 70 players(including the guys on the practice squad) doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for those guys.
Compare this to the sise of a division one(top tier) football program that only has a limit in the offseason and first couple weeks of the season of 105 players. Now, not every school carries that many, but look at the disparity in