The Commanders got their guy in Jayden Daniels at No. 2, and come Saturday evening when the Draft wraps up, 257 players will have been selected – but hundreds, unfortunately, will not.
Have no fear, though, because just take it from our Audacy NFL insider, Ross Tucker, who went undrafted in 2001: someone could call, and it could change your life.
“Back then it was the first three rounds on Saturday and then I think Sunday was the last four rounds. My mom and dad had just gotten me my first cell phone for my birthday, and so I sat there in my dorm with my college roommates, and I had the dorm phone and I had my cell phone,” Ross recalled to the Junkies Friday. “The only team that called me was the Cincinnati Bengals. They had not had a winning season in the entire 1990s, and they called me in the first round. I answered the phone and I was like, ‘I'm ready to be a Bengal’ and they were like, ‘yeah, Ross, if you don't get drafted, we might wanna sign you as a free agent after the draft.’ I was like, okay, cool, and then they called me the next day to tell me the same thing, and I was like, ‘yeah, I remember when you called me yesterday and told me that.’”
Talk about a pair of all-time dekes, and it only got worse.
“My agent told me the longer it takes for you to hear from me, the worse it is, and he told me I was 50/50 to even get signed. So I'm sitting there for an hour after the draft, absolutely nothing, and now I’m starving,” Tucker said. “So I go out to the eating clubs, which at Princeton are kind of like a fraternity and sorority combined into one, and they're cooking out, the girls are all in sundresses, the guys are all eating burgers and drinking beer, and I thought I had just ruined my whole second semester of college. I got up at 5 a.m. every day, and they were all getting in at 5 a.m. from partying every night. I couldn't even talk to anybody. I tried to eat a burger, I had like two bites and went back to the dorm, and they wouldn't even look at me because they could tell.”
And then, finally…
“I go back to the dorm and as I'm walking up the steps, I hear a phone ringing. I go sprinting up the steps and it's my agent, and he’s like, Ross, where were you?” Tucker recalled. “I’m like, ‘you said the longer it took the worse sign it was, and I was starving.’ Imagine that now, it sounds ridiculous because he would just call your cell phone, but he said, ‘congratulations, you're the newest member of the Washington Redskins.”
That was 23 years ago, but it still hits Ross the same way today as it did then.
“I'm 45 now, I retired in 2008, but as I tell you this, my eyes are filling up; like I'm getting goose bumps,” he said. “A Top 10 moment in my life. As soon as I was done, I ran right back out to that courtyard where all my friends were and all the girls were and everything, and I burst through the doors of the courtyard, and I put the number ones up and yelled ‘Redskins!’ and all my buddies run over and we all start jumping up and down. It was awesome.”
And from there, it only got better.
“Like four days later, I'm at Redskins Park getting a physical. I'm still not graduating for two months, and I'm at Redskins Park and I'm about to get the EKG machine behind Bruce Smith. Then for the physical, it's Jeff George,” Tucker said. “I’m looking around like what is happening right now? These are the guys I've been watching on TV and playing Madden with for the last 10 years, and now I'm like them in line to get bloodwork. It was crazy!”
The weirdest thing of all?
“Nobody had even gotten signed as an undrafted free agent since Keith Elias in 1993, so it had been eight years, and then my year Dennis Norman got drafted in the seventh round by the Seahawks, and my roommate got signed by the Browns,” Tucker said. “We went from nobody even getting a chance for eight years to having three O-Linemen either drafted or signed the same year, and we were 3-7 our last two years. How is that possible in the Ivy?”