So is Walker's decision
- Thread starter hdhntr1
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Nope. Go for the money while you are healthy. Four years of college is enough.
He already has his degree. Why go to graduate school when your goal career is in sports? Being a former professional player also helps in landing a sports job. Start your career ASAP your window is limited. This would be different if he didn't have his degree because then he would have more of an incentive of staying to earn his fall back option.
(Completely selfishly I wish he woulda stayed so I could watch him play one more year)
(Completely selfishly I wish he woulda stayed so I could watch him play one more year)
He did the right thing---for him---and nothing is more important. The way I look at it, he is fulfilling his life's dream. He now is an NFL player and will make good money. He has the opportunity to prove his worth to the Colts and can earn an even bigger paycheck down the road based on merit---just like the rest of us. Good things happen to good people and I think that Ant will be very successful in life. Very happy for him.
What if he comes back and blows out a knee the first day of camp? What if he comes back and shows no improvement or backslides? There is nobody that knows he made a good or bad decision but him.
Injury assumptions have to be applied equally to either scenario, and are equally damaging in either scenario.
I think there was enough tape on AW for GMs to decide what kind of pro player he would be. He's better at 235 lbs than at 250 lbs. That is a given. At this point, he is not going to significantly alter his athletic skills and limitations. Given this, I think he made the best choice to to the NFL and secure a contract. I hope his next one is much more lucrative.
As others have said, it's hard to fault him because he already has his degree... but I think he could have gone much higher if he dropped to about 230 and turned in another full season of good tape with a better combine workout. Perhaps take out some insurance if money/injury is the main concern.
Wasn't he eligible to declare after his RS soph year? That was when his stock was highest. Kudos to him for graduating but last year just brought down his draft grade.
IMHO it is a draw.
Getting drafted even in the 5th Round gets him close to a $200,000 signing bonus which isn't chump change. Going in the 6th or lower though would have been another matter. (While those larger signing bonuses sound appealing, once one hits $200,000 one is likely already in the highest tax bracket and after state and federal reductions the take is significantly reduced.)
My primary concern for him, decision wise, was whether he himself would look back and regret a missed opportunity to improve his draft stock by staying another year as I am sure Darnell Autry ended up regretting.
I also see the whole injury issue as a red herring though since he could just as well, if not more likely, get injured during a first year in the NFL prior to locking in some guaranteed long term money. (Gocatsgo2003's point about staying and taking out insurance is intriguing, as I am sure that option is now not available for an injury during the first year of NFL play.)
Getting drafted even in the 5th Round gets him close to a $200,000 signing bonus which isn't chump change. Going in the 6th or lower though would have been another matter. (While those larger signing bonuses sound appealing, once one hits $200,000 one is likely already in the highest tax bracket and after state and federal reductions the take is significantly reduced.)
My primary concern for him, decision wise, was whether he himself would look back and regret a missed opportunity to improve his draft stock by staying another year as I am sure Darnell Autry ended up regretting.
I also see the whole injury issue as a red herring though since he could just as well, if not more likely, get injured during a first year in the NFL prior to locking in some guaranteed long term money. (Gocatsgo2003's point about staying and taking out insurance is intriguing, as I am sure that option is now not available for an injury during the first year of NFL play.)
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A $200k signing bonus isn't bad by any means, but he could have secured himself a LOT more guaranteed money if he played his way into the second (or even third) round:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/nfl-draft-contract-values-2017-4
That's probably when his stock was higher, but another year like that would likely have put him back into that ballpark.
Just curious, is one even allowed to listen to an agent before making the decision to go pro? If so one would question the agent's self-interest in influencing the decision process.
Given that the camp injury that impacted the early season performance seems to have been overcome as evident by the improved performance seen in the bowl game, it would be hard to argue against the proposition, on a more likely than not basis, that an additional year would have had the greater potential of "putting him back into that ballpark."
In my opinion he would have dropped further 6th / 7th / UDFA) by sticking around for another year. Per Yesterdays post, he would have likely been a higher draft pick had he come out earlier in 2016. We're lucky he didn't declare as a program, but his injury to start the season did hurt his performance & draft status.
Now he has his degree, he was drafted by a quality team that lacks much LB talent with a solid young QB (Luck), and can always come back for a graduate degree if he so wishes (a la Jason Wright). He made the right choice to declare this year.
Good luck #1! I have a reason to cheer for the Colts now and will do as long as you're playing for them.
An agent, no. But, like every P5 program, NU has a designated "NFL Liasion" whose job it is to interface with teams and receive feedback on players. Plus the NFL will provide a high-level recommendation upon request.
If it meant he had the chance to drop some of the extra weight, I don't think it's that hard to argue.
Without a question, he should have declared. The downside is coming back clearly outweighs the upside. The only the reason to come back is for us fans. More often than not you go down in the draft by staying a year. Look at Desmond King from Iowa.
Keep your private affairs private, please.
So long as he doesn't end up as cannon fodder he should do OK. Hopefully the Colts will consider $200,000 enough of an investment to merit the effort to get him onto the team.
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Every decision we make is both the right decision and the wrong decision based on how we choose to look back on it in retrospect. Some years down the road, it will be up to AW to look back and say from that vantage point, whether he believes the decision was a good one. Playing out scenarios of how this young man's life could progress from this point forward, I believe there is high probability that he we look back and believe he did exactly the right thing.
There was an interesting study reported on NPR sometime back about how the fork in the road decisions we make are almost always looked back upon as the right ones. It was an interesting finding with regard to how the mind works and how we are programmed to rationalize the correctness of the decisions we make as well as to how we adapt to life impacting events. One of the discussed examples was a candidate losing an election. The point made was that as humans we are, after an adjustment period, just as happy either way. As I recall, happiness was the measured criteria.
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As Yogi Berra once said, "when you come to a fork in the road, take it!"
I've also read about studies that show that people who embrace change and actively seek out new situations tend to be more successful. So the guy who changes jobs four or five or six times in his career is likely to do better than the guy who puts in 30 years and gets the gold watch.
That doesn't necessarily apply to Walker because his choice was about when more than what, but change, where often difficult, is also often good.
"not much money."
"if."
It's all relative...and in my universe, he got a Northwestern degree, was the pride of a Big Ten defense and just got drafted by an actual pro football team. He's fine.
"if."
It's all relative...and in my universe, he got a Northwestern degree, was the pride of a Big Ten defense and just got drafted by an actual pro football team. He's fine.
Because careers in sports are short (average about 3-4 years heavily weighted by those top picks with guaranteed contracts) and the rest of work life is long. Having the Masters can be a big part of the rest of life. Again, fine decision for first couple rounds but the 5th?
He will make good money IFF he stays healthy, makes roster and is able to stay there a while, and actually get a second contract. He has smaller signing bonus ($175K) and no guaranteed contract.
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First say $175K and that is basically chump change when everyone on the roster all year gets like $390K. Even getting to round 4 means $550K siging bonus AND guaranteed contract meaning that $390k goes on a couple years. 5th round guaranteed $175k. HEck, a year at NU Grad schools is about $80K and with taxes, $175k is like $100 so little difference. 4th round guaranteed something like $1.5mill? For a 5th rounder, money does not really come till second contract, if it comes.
Careers in sports aren't limited to players. There's coaches, gm's, marketing, etc. I was saying being a former professional player gets you a one up on that. He already has his degree and if a career in sports is his goal then he made a perfect decision for him. There's quite a few low round success stories and according to what the colts thought about him on his interview I bet he'll be one of those players.
It is hard to argue any of those points and I assume those surrounding Anthony were hoping for and expecting at least a 4th Round selection. One has to believe that those advising him to forego the extra year led him to believe that would be the case.
Going mid 5th was pretty close. Not sure how telling it is, but on the NFL Network's Draft Selection Show they had the players before and after Anthony featured with someone in the player's own community actually making the pick. All we got for Walker was a graphic. Perhaps reading too much into it, but it didn't look like there was much celebrating going on by those close to our guy. In a subsequent draft feature the comment was made that those who go in the later rounds often play with a chip on their shoulder. I guess that can be a good thing.
That said, the 5th Round was much better than the 6th would have been.
I guess the lack of interviews is telling. I sort of expected some sort of interview from In Side NU anyway. OTOH I don't remember last years picks giving an interview either.
That is why I was suggesting that his decision was short sighted. Playing career are short but that the rest of life is not and that getting closer to having Masters (since now days, Bachelors is not designed to be directed toward getting a kid a job) in sports management etc gets them closer to those roles
Are you unaware that Walker wants a career as an executive in the NFL? Playing is NOT his career objective.
That's just silly. Of course he wants to be an NFL player. Otherwise he wouldn't have left school early. Do you really want me to believe that he left NU early because he wanted to start his NFL career early so the he could get into an NFL front office earlier?
