Take the leap

A new year has me reflecting: how the hell did I get here?

This is a picture I took in 2016 at a place in Washington called Deception Pass. How I ended up in Washington is quite a story of its own, but I’ve always appreciated the cross-hatching of the pass itself as someone whose path has been anything but linear.

It’s pretty rare (and expensive) to have the lightbulb moment about what you’re most passionate about while sitting in a graduate program classroom on a campus made of entirely beautiful red brick.

But that’s how my story started in the middle.

I have a vivid memory of walking back to my off-campus house in the fall of my final year of undergrad at Anderson University thinking to myself on the verge of tears, “What the hell am I going to do?” I had one semester left in a degree I now knew I had no interest in using. And I didn’t figure it out before I graduated.

So my answer was to go back to school but in a different field. I moved out to Seattle after graduating and started a master’s program in Counseling psychology. I wanted something new. I had lived in the midwest my whole life and was ready to branch out on my own in search of a new possibility.

I took the leap.

I got the full Seattle experience (natives would very much hate that sentiment). I drank too much beer and worked as a barista in a swanky coffee shop, and the constant rain gave me depression. I checked off every box until they bring back Sonics basketball.

That lasted one year.

Counseling psychology wasn’t for me either and I knew it within a semester. I changed my track back to a similar path as my undergrad with the intention of mastering the field, getting a doctorate, and entering the field of academia instead.

I moved back to Ohio to be closer to my now-wife and transferred my credits to the University of Dayton. Yet the courseload felt grueling, the content didn’t engage me the way it should have if I was going to spend the rest of my life mastering the field and teaching on it.

The semester of 2017, the second-to-last of my program, was when the lightbulb came on. By this point, I was so tuned out to the content that I’d bring my laptop to class to look like I was taking notes.

Instead, I was on Bleacher Report getting caught up on all the NFL news and content that I could absorb. This also happened to be the year that my lifelong favorite team, the Cleveland Browns (a cross I was handed to carry at a young age) was tanking, but doing so in an NBA-like way by acquiring salary dumps in exchange for higher picks to stock up on future assets to navigate a terrible inherited roster.

The Browns had three first round picks in 2017 and needed a quarterback. This was the starting point of when I realized that creating football content was something that I was passionate about.

I had a 75-minute commute twice per week from Columbus to Dayton for my afternoon classes and would spend the whole drive listening to football podcasts. On that same laptop and in those same classes, I would open up Excel spreadsheets and spend my class time mapping out mock drafts, anticipating what kind of talent the Browns could add.

I started watching the quarterbacks of that draft class with no idea what I was supposed to be looking at or watching for. But it was the beginning point on my timeline as a content creator. I didn’t write anything back then as I was still in school and working full-time, but it lingered in the back of my mind.

So I graduated from UD with no intention of using that pesky master’s degree for anything more than decorations on the wall to show off. The moment I graduated and got bored with the extra time, I knew what I wanted to do.

So I found a Cleveland Browns site that I wrote for free for. Then I got on at FanSided (say what you want about the company, but it’s a great place to start), then that led to a role as an editor in the company covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team I had no interest in but did it to get my foot in the door. Then they gave me their draft site to run, which I did for two years before I got burned out.

Then I bounced from Sports Illustrated to 247 to USA Today, where I still edit their Browns content. Throughout this time I’ve published two draft guides, pouring hours into over 150 scouting reports in both of those years.

I’ve spent countless hours combing through coaching clinics on YouTube or that have been passed along in shared drives. I’ve tried to digest NFL playbooks, frequently DMing people for clarifications on what I am seeing and watching to try to sharpen up my knowledge of the game.

That was six years ago.

Finding additional draft content work has been hard to come by, however, since I left my post as the editor of With the First Pick in 2021. I’ve done draft contract work for Opta Analyst, written some freelance pieces elsewhere, and returned to SI for a spell. The thing about draft work is that it’s hard to find a paying gig and one that is stable. It’s usually the first thing to go when a company goes through cutbacks.

That happened to me again in October when I was putting out content for SI and they decided they wanted the site back (and haven’t posted a single piece to the site since). I had some soft options to go to, but felt the lightbulb come on again.

It was time to go independent. Daft on Draft has been around for three years, but the content was inconsistent and the podcast was sporadic. So I went for it.

I got Dalton to agree to co-host the podcast and we’ve been doing four episodes per week all season. I’ve been publishing film rooms, newsletters, analyses, and more since I made the decision to go independent. This Substack has tripled in subscribers since then.

I took the leap.

Since jumping blindly into the industry, it’s led to more cool shit than I could have possibly imagined. From traveling to the Senior Bowl in 2020, to frequenting the NFL Scouting Combine every year, to networking and consulting with NFL agents, building relationships with and interviewing players, to now getting set to take off for Frisco, Texas later this month for the Shrine Game, the ride has been awesome.

2024 was a hell of a year.

Never would I have imagined when I was thrown into a football/NFL Draft specific group chat five years ago that it would lead to me networking with others in the industry that I can now call my friends. We have each other’s numbers and chat frequently, I know who to call when I need a podcast substitute, we get drinks and dinner at the combine every year.

There is still so much to learn, so many questions still to be asked, and much to still be accomplished. But this has been the ride that I’ve been looking for.

This industry has given me so much. When I think about the possibilities football has provided and what it could continue to be in the future I am filled with gratitude.

Gratitude for continuing to take leap after leap.

So fuck it.

It’s never too late. I spent thousands of dollars on two degrees I don’t use before I figured out how I wanted to invest my time. It’ll be a learning moment I can tell my kids 16 years from now when they’re rushing off to college.

Daft on Draft is the culmination of all of the hard work I went through before the lightbulb came on, all of the learning and growing once I got here, and of the road ahead that has yet to be traveled. I’m proud to be here. I’m proud of what I’ve built.

Do I wish I had figured it out before I was 26 years old and two degrees worth of student loans deep (thank goodness I also work in non-profit and am getting those bad boys forgiven)? Of course. But better late than never.

Football has done a lot for me. This industry has done a lot for me. At the age of 32, I hope it has a lot more to give to me. But it’s a child’s game. And that’s always a humbling thing to remember when I’m typing out some dick-ish reply on social media.

Take what you’re passionate about seriously. It took me a while to figure that out. So as I reflect on another year, let’s continue to attack the things that draw us in most curiously and take them seriously without taking ourselves too seriously.

Let’s have some fun in 2025.