The uncertainty is agony.

Jake Bobo sits between his mother and father, awaiting the biggest moment of his 24-year-old life. The 6-foot-4, 206-pound star wide receiver out of UCLA looks awkward on the couch, his right knee bouncing rapidly with anticipation. It’s the final day of the 2023 NFL draft and he still hasn’t been selected by a team.

Every year, the future of thousands of football players are on the line during the NFL draft. A small fraction will go pro, but the vast majority will go home to an uncertain future, maybe even start looking for “normal” jobs like other college graduates or dropouts.

This year’s crop, Bobo among them, may have trained all winter with the hope of punching a ticket to the highest level of the sport they’ve devoted themselves to, but only a fraction of them can succeed.

Against the odds

Born into a family of athletes, Bobo was exposed to many different sports — basketball, track, lacrosse — before he made a name for himself in football.

But football, he said in a recent phone call, “has always just been a part of who I am.”

While he flashed some dominance during his five years of college ball, Bobo himself is the first to admit he’s a prospect who needs some development before he can truly shine at the next level, and that need will likely affect his stock on draft day. Even so, he has the size, hands and character that NFL teams covet, so there’s plenty of reason to believe he has a shot at being drafted.

His parents were both athletes at Dartmouth College. His father Mike played wide receiver. His mother Casey played hockey, and would later go on to coach that and lacrosse. Jake played four years at Duke, and then transferred to UCLA for the 2022 season, which concluded in December. He shined in Los Angeles, catching seven touchdowns on the season and saving his best games for his toughest opponents. NFL teams took notice.

Jake Bobo runs a 40-yard dash during the UCLA Pro Day (via his Instagram)

Dating back to his first time lacing up for Pop Warner football, Bobo has been the best player on the field. His combination of size and athleticism puts him in superhuman territory, after all.

The leap from high school to college football crushes the dreams of the vast majority of hometown football heroes. Just 3-4 percent of high school players make it to college teams, and even less get to the coveted Division I. As a three-star high school recruit out of Massachusetts, though, Bobo essentially guaranteed himself the chance to play at the next level.

But these past few months have been different amid far more intense competition from the cream of the crop. He’s undoubtedly a very good football player, but he’s not among the best young players hoping to get drafted. That’s why there’s no guarantee he gets any shot in the NFL: everyone around him is now an elite-tier football player. He has to find a way to stand out among them.

“[Football] is what I do, so I don’t really have another option,” he says. “I can’t really imagine doing anything else.”

“I’m gonna work my butt off because there’s no Plan B,” he said on the field of Allegiant Stadium in early February following the East-West Shrine Bowl in Las Vegas, an invite-only college football all-star game for draft prospects. “Getting paid to play football is my dream.”

How the NFL draft works

Once a year in late April, NFL teams pick from the pool of all draft eligible prospects. You are considered “draft eligible” if at least one of two things is true: A) You have completed four years of college eligibility, or B) you’ve been approved to enter the draft early as an underclassman. Oftentimes, the very top prospects are among the latter group. For the 2023 draft class, the league granted 69 players this special eligibility.

There’s no official draft registration process and the total number of draft-eligible players changes from year to year, but coming up with a rough estimate of how many eligible players there are is simple enough.

According to the NCAA, 254 of their Division I schools currently sponsor a football program. Add on the 169 Division II football programs, and that’s 423 schools with players who are draft eligible. The number of seniors on each team also varies, but after gathering data on the number of seniors and grad students at 25 different college football programs, there are typically around 23 seniors per team. That means that there are nearly 10,000 draft-eligible players each year — and that doesn’t even include the 70-or-so underclassmen who declare for the draft early.

The number of picks in the draft varies each year, but the 32 NFL teams generally end up choosing a collective 250 or so players. So of that pool of draft-eligible players, less than the top three percent of them wind up hearing their name called in April.

That’s why only a portion of those eligible prospects even bother going through the draft process itself and try to put themselves on the radar of NFL teams.

Once players have become draft-eligible or have declared their intention to enter the draft early, the NFL Player Personnel staff work with teams, agents and schools to clarify the players’ status.

The draft process begins well before the draft itself. Prospects train for months, working to round out any weaknesses to their game and prepare for showcase events before the draft, like college pro days and the NFL Scouting Combine — an invite-only, week-long showcase where prospects perform physical and mental drills to show off to NFL teams. Only around 300–350 players receive a combine invitation every year. Bobo made the cut.

The draft itself is seven rounds. The first round, made up of the first 32 picks (one for each team, unless they have traded it to another), gets its own night to start the three-day event. This is very much the main attraction for fans, many of whom immerse themselves in draft content for their favorite teams and research prospects in the months leading up.

The few months preceding the draft are filled with first round mock drafts, player rankings and more from the media and fanatics, trying to best predict how the top will play out. From mock draft simulators allowing fans to take control of their favorite teams, to social media accounts and podcasts dedicated entirely to analysis of prospects, the draft’s following is massive, and only grows as the day of the first round approaches.

Day two consists of the second and third rounds, while the third and final day runs through the last four rounds.

Again, after all that, only around 250 of the nearly-10,000 eligible names will be called. Another few hundred will get the opportunity to try out for rosters as undrafted free agents, but at that point, nothing is guaranteed.

Undrafted Free Agents

Just ask Darrell Baker Jr., an undrafted cornerback for the Indianapolis Colts. Baker played football at Georgia Southern before entering the 2022 NFL Draft. Going into the draft, he says he felt confident.

“I had the expectation of probably going in like the sixth, seventh round,” the now-25-year-old said in a recent Zoom call. “So [going undrafted] was disappointing… It hurt a little bit, just having that expectation.”

NFL rosters are made up largely of players whom the team has made a significant investment in, whether it be in guaranteed money or a draft pick. That’s why actually being drafted comes with significantly more job security than signing with a team as an undrafted free agent. UDFAs have minimal commitment from the teams they sign with, so they have to convincingly prove themselves better than their competition before they can earn a long-term role.

Never one to feel sorry for himself or shy away from work, Baker signed with the Arizona Cardinals not long after the draft.

“I’ve always said, as long as I get my foot in that door, I’m gonna kick it down,” he said.

So he battled all summer to make the Arizona Cardinals’ final 53-man roster. Despite the uphill climb, things were actually looking good until he injured his shoulder, causing him to miss several weeks. Suddenly without a team, the hardest part for him during that uncertain period, he says, was not being able to play football — his “safe haven,” as he calls it — due to the injury.

After trying out for a few different teams that needed help at cornerback, the Colts took Baker in, signing him to their practice squad. He finished this past season on the active roster and saw the field in three games, fulfilling his lifelong dream of playing in the NFL.

“God does things for a reason,” he said. “This was all supposed to happen like this. It’s all a part of my story. If it happened any other way, it wouldn’t be my story.”

Small Ball

For college players who aren’t selected on draft day or who can’t make an NFL roster, there are other — albeit smaller — options.

The United States Football League, which launched in 2021 and began playing in 2022, is a professional minor league in which eight teams play football in the spring and into the summer. The pay is a small fraction of what players earn in the NFL — active USFL players only earn a set $5,350 per week — but the opportunity to keep playing and keep their dream alive is what matters.

At this year’s USFL College Draft in February, the New Orleans Breakers took Jake Bobo with their 60th overall pick out of 80 total.

Bobo says he’s unlikely to go that route; he hasn’t given up on his NFL dream.

“I mean it’s cool,” he said. “If nothing else, I’m a professional football player; to be able to say [that] is pretty cool.”

The NFL’s draft in April creates special challenges for USFL teams. Aside from the talent scouting, teams must strategically prioritize selecting players who they believe either won’t be drafted into the NFL, or who might opt for a larger role with them over a smaller role with an NFL team.

The USFL isn’t the only professional alternative to the NFL in the U.S. The XFL (or “Xtra Fun League”) joined the fray this year as well. Thanks to massive support and promotion from its co-owner, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the inaugural season’s popularity has surprised many skeptics. The pay for players is nearly identical to that of the USFL.

The Money Factor

There’s a common misconception that once a player has made it to the NFL, they’re financially set for life. In reality, though, it’s only a small percentage of players who truly get to that point.

Sure, most NFL players’ salaries make them reasonably better-off than most of us (the 2023 minimum salary is $750,000), but the truth is, their careers are significantly shorter than most. Unless a player is one of the very best in the league at his position, the total money he makes over that few-year span isn’t exactly generational over the course of a lifetime — particularly when raising (or planning to raise) a family.

There’s a saying in the football world that “NFL” stands for “Not For Long.” That’s why the players who make it to the league have to be smart with money they earn.

“I’m just trying to make my next contract,” said LSU defensive back and 2023 prospect Jay Ward in a Zoom interview a few weeks ahead of the draft. “I’m trying to save as much money as possible, invest in a few things. I’m thinking long-term.”

Draft Day

Entering the final round of the NFL draft, Jake Bobo’s knee bounces a bit quicker.

42 picks left.

Each name flickers on screen, one at a time, while the analysts break them down for a few minutes in between — for Bobo, the minutes feel like hours.

Finally, the name of the last draft pick appears on screen: Desjuan Johnson.

Undrafted. That's that.

Bobo had, of course, been ready for this potential reality, but it stings all the same. Similar to Baker, though, he’s never been one to feel sorry for himself. Now is a crucial time. Chin up.

He spends the next few hours talking with teams — there’s plenty of interest.

A few hours following the draft, Bobo agreed to terms with the Seattle Seahawks on an undrafted free agent contract. It’s no guarantee of an NFL roster spot and paycheck, but for an undrafted prospect, it’s the necessary first step to getting your foot in the door.

“I’m not gonna quit, I’m not gonna go away,” he said. “This is just who I am, this is what I do, so we’re gonna go ahead and finish this thing out.”