The NFL – Journey to Becoming a Professional.
The 49ers have always prided itself as being a pioneering organisation, the roots of this stemmed from the late great Bill Walsh, who developed for example programs promoting minority coaches (The Bill Walsh Diversity Fellowship). Walsh understand the importance of the mental health of players and the importance of player inclusion (his famous fishing trips). The 49ers also take pride in supporting players long after they retire.
The recent incident involving a young 49ers player and a member of the media, once again illustrated that the journey for a player to a professional is far more challenging than ever before. Rather than focus on this individual incident, I think it is more important to consider what individual teams and the NFL should be doing to help a player transition from a student in college into becoming a professional.
In my profession, we spend years training, shadowing our peers before we start working on our own. The NFL by its nature and the short career spans of players, does not have that luxury, so we have at present a scenario that players are drafted into a team and depending on factors like their agents, family, and the individual teams, they will manage this transition.
The modern player must now deal with 24 hours round the clock media coverage, social media coverage, which unlike before, means players are bombarded with analysis, criticism from not only accredited media outlets, but also fans directly.
I look at Trey Lance, who has daily coverage of all aspects of his play, life, his development, all this scrutiny for any person, let alone someone who has just completed college will be and is challenging and requires help and support.
I recently watched a documentary on Tiger Woods, and one of the most interesting parts of that documentary was his relationship with Nike. Tiger and Nike understood the importance of building a message, helping Tiger with the media, and trying to prepare Tiger for what was about to happen to him, albeit a Sporting global icon.
The PGA invest time in training their professionals, their training courses include, media training, financial management and helping players adapt to the demands of being on the Tour.
Does the NFL and teams need to look at organisations like the PGA and develop courses which help players? Are the NFL and teams doing enough to help their rookies?
Like all good organisations, they need to adapt, invest in training of its staff in order to succeed. OTA’s and this time of the season should be should be focused on helping players entering the NFL.
It would be great to see a program, where all rookies, once OTA’s and mini camp have been completed, they are taken away by either their teams or the NFL. A course is designed on media, financial management, social media, marketing, endorsement management and branding etc. In addition, ex professionals are bought in to discuss life as a player and highlight the mistakes that can be made on and off the field.
I am sure teams, and the NFL are doing this, but from an outsider looking in, more can be done to help the players in their journey to becoming a professional.
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