It's preseason for both NFL teams and college programs, but the line between the two is getting blurred. Players who've exhausted their college eligibility and, in some cases, joined NFL teams and even played in preseason games are instead returning to the college ranks thanks to a series of conflicting and confusing court rulings. While much of the debate has revolved around how college programs and players are reacting to the uncertainty, NFL figures have thoughts, too.
Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay was asked by Sarah Barshop of ESPN about players in NFL camps returning to college, and his answer was very much in line with what you'd expect someone living in La La Land to say. "I feel like I took a freakin' gummy," he said, as reported by Rams beat reporter Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times. By gummy, McVay is referring to the common form of marijuana edibles, which are quite popular in LA and in California, where they're legalized on the state level.
Given how strange it is for what was once a one-way path from college to the NFL now has traffic going both directions, it makes sense that McVay would compare it to being in an altered state of mind. Collegiate sports have a long history of punishing and even banning players who dipped their toe into a future in professional sports. Just look at Bo Jackson, who took a flight to Tampa to undergo a physical ahead of the NFL Draft.
The issue was that he was still playing collegiate baseball, and his career with the Auburn Tigers baseball team ended prematurely because he had violated the rules, even unknowingly. Buccaneers team officials like Phil Krueger, assistant to the team president, even publicly supported Jackson's innocence, but to no avail. The physical Bo took in Tampa at St.
Joseph’s Hospital was for the national scouting combine and not the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.” Now, though, someone like Jack Pyburn, a rookie with — coincidentally — the Buccaneers, can get two sacks in a preseason game, then possibly return to the college ranks. It's that kind of whiplash that can make you question your sanity or, in McVay's case, your sobriety.
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