RIDICULOUS COMMITMENT
It’s NFL Draft week, which serves as the culmination of months worth of work by each pro football team’s front office. Every team’s "experts" have been studying film, conducting interviews, and digging deep to uncover which players are worthy of their selection, and which ones they should avoid.
This process is of course far from flawless. Every year there are highly talented and highly touted prospects who meet every metric and yet never pan out. At the same time, there are always players who are overlooked or ignored on draft night who end up having long and productive careers. Wes Welker is one of the best examples. Welker became one of the best wide receivers in football - a five-time Pro Bowler who was twice named 1st team All-Pro. He led the league in receptions three different times. But in Wes Welker's 2004 NFL Draft class, 255 players got their names called...and his wasn’t one of them. At only 5’9”, the "experts" thought he was too little.
Welker joined the San Diego Chargers practice squad, and as an undrafted free agent, immediately found himself right where you’d expect. Last on the depth chart, watching from the sidelines as those higher profile players got the bulk of the practice reps. Desperate to prove himself, Welker committed to doing whatever he could, from right where he was, to make an impact. He started listening in on the play calls, and then - while the starters ran through the plays together - Welker retreated 20 or so yards behind the group, and proceeded to run the same plays from his position, all by himself. Try to picture it. Up front there was the team practicing the plays. And then, behind, there was little rookie Wes Welker, running the same play on his own. He readily admits he must have looked ridiculous.
“I was looking like an idiot,” Welker later admitted. “But whatever could help me in making the team? I was gonna do it.” Not surprisingly, Welker’s ridiculous commitment got him noticed. Soon, he found himself getting a few real reps - you know, with actual teammates and a real football - and earned his way onto the Chargers’ opening day roster. Eventually he'd play for the Dolphins, the Patriots, and the Broncos, too. Twelve years after running routes on his own, Welker retired from a long and productive NFL career. Longer and more productive, I’d guess, than most of those 255 players who the "experts" chose instead of him.
I share that story with you today because Wes Welker provides us with a blueprint for the kind of commitment it often takes to do something meaningful and significant. Sometimes people like us need people like him, who are willing to go ridiculously far in order to get what they want. Their example challenges us to examine how far we're willing to go in order to get what we want. Wes Welker didn't mind looking foolish because what he wanted - to make that NFL roster - was more important to him than how he looked or what other people may have thought. I have to wonder how many of those other training camp prospects stood there snickering at the little undrafted rookie running routes in the back by himself. I also wonder how many of them ended up having a career even close to Wes Welker's.
This week, more than 250 players will be selected in this year’s NFL draft. You can bet the "experts" have been studying film, conducting interviews, and digging deep to uncover which players are worthy of their selection, and which ones they should avoid. But Wes Welker proves that the selection process is far from flawless. That's because you can measure someone’s height or their weight, their vertical leap or their bench press max. But it’s hard to measure someone’s commitment - how far it is they're willing to go in order to get what they want. And that, in all honesty, might just be the most important metric of all.
