Dreaming of the NFL? Good Luck

I saw this article in thought WOW! I'm so proud of my Ray.. He has definitely come a long ways and is still working so hard to accomplish his dream!! He is definitely one in a million.


The Salt Lake Tribune
By Lya Wodraska

Local college football players who are headed into the NFL have made it to the big time.

Boy, did they beat the odds to do it, too.

According to the NFL Players Association, out of the 100,000 high school seniors who play football every year, only 215 will ever make an NFL roster.

For those mathematically challenged like myself, that is just 0.2 percent, or 1 out of 465 probability.

Give any player who makes it to the pro football level a lot of credit for the talent and hard work it takes to get there.

It's easy when you're watching a pro game and a player drops a pass or shanks what should be an easy game-winning field goal to think he is "terrible."

But anyone who can be in such an elite group, even if all he is doing is keeping the bench warm, has achieved something amazing.

It should also serve as a reminder that any parent who puts their child into a youth football program hoping he'll be the next Peyton Manning should keep their hopes realistic.

To put the odds of making an NFL team in perspective, consider a person has better chances of dying by falling down (1-in-246) or by a firearm (1-in 325) than making it into the NFL. A person has a better chance of dating a millionaire (215-to-1), being on a plane with a drunken pilot (117-to-1), having his or her identity stolen (200-to-1) or writing a New York Times best seller (220-to-1) than reaching the NFL.

Keep in mind, too, the NFL odds are based on the number of high school players participating in football their senior year, which means many would-be candidates already have been eliminated from possibility.

I couldn't find the exact odds, but I'm thinking the chance of a boy growing up to be an NFL player is somewhere between the odds of getting struck by lightning and dying (1-in-83,930) and being killed by an asteroid impact (1-in-200,000).

Of course, the challenge for the future NFLers isn't over.

They'll have to work even harder to remain in the NFL and meet the expectations of being draft picks.

They've got to earn their big salaries, their playing time and longevity.

The average career for an NFL player is only 3.5 seasons.

They've beaten the law of averages once; it'll be fun to see if they can beat them again.