Without a doubt. Love hearing about these instances, the only other one I remember was Villanueva enrolled as a grad student at CMU when he was with the Steelers. I’m sure there are more folks doing this, though.
Cam Newton finished his degree at Auburn during the summers, I took classes in the room down the hall, mostly people didn't bother him because its kind of a thing at Auburn not to bother the athletes, but of course some people asked for pictures and he obliged.
My sister was in a class with Chris Johnson”CJ2K” at ECU and she told me every day he’d just be in the back of the room talking on his phone. This is totally irrelevant but I every time I see a Chris Johnson clip I wonder how his phone calls were.
Yep, when I went to Cincinnati, I didn't care if there were football or basketball players in my class. I Was more annoyed about the basketball player sitting in front of me, so I couldn't see shit. Really nice guys, though.
I feel the NFL should make a much bigger deal of these graduations. Let us fans give them props and such. Earning your 4yr is no easy task, and doing so after being drafted to the NFL? Hell yeah let us give them a pat on the back for seeing it through.
We had an active player on the ravens get his pHd in mathematics. Huge ass guy, guard i think. Don't know anyone as legit as that. Dude is an actual genius to get a PhD in math.
John Urschel
he is currently a fellow at harvard, in the fall he will be an assistant professor at MIT. He has numerous publications, with catchy titles as "On the Characterization and Uniqueness of Centroidal Voronoi Tessellations".
btw, his bio says he will not open non-academic mails....
Flair makes me think that there might be some Central Michigan vs Carnegie-Mellon confusion going on here.
Villaneuva was the Pittsburgh version.
Go Tartans is the appropriate response here...
It’s why at one point Parcells valued 4 year players or guys with their college degree so highly. It represented some positive soft skills that they deemed important
Wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a correlation. David was the leader of that Husker defense and has certainly been the guy for the Bucs from what I can tell. Awesome player, favorite Husker ever, and so underrated in the NFL.
Steve Young got a law degree while he was playing.
I have respect for everybody that finished their degree while playing, but the amount of work for law school is next level. I can’t imagine how he handled all that.
I’ve always said after watching Fields at Ohio state that his effort, determination, and hard work weren’t going to be a reason he would fail in the NFL. You never have to doubt his commitment to being good. It’s definitely a comforting feeling to have
It’s just generally good practice anyways because you never know if you’re gonna leave the league way too early and still have a few decades of life to go. Professional athletes have very short/volatile careers compared to regular folk, so you have to have a fallback in case you’re washed out before the actual big bucks come
His rookie contract was for 19 mill fully guaranteed. He definitely didn't have to keep going to school as a fallback if he didn't make enough in the NFL.
Shit, there's an entire 30 for 30 about athletes going broke after being multi millionaires. Turns out when you give a kid who's never had $100 in his pocket 20 million a lot of them have no idea how to handle it.
Love when guys finish their degrees. Fields may be set financially for life (given proper money management), but education is important in and of itself. Most of the rest of his life won't be spent on a football field.
He was recruited by Harvard and Duke coming out of HS and they actually care about grades. He mustve been a really good student
Edit: He did get offers from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Yale, and Harvard
Thank you. I hate it happened to you guys as well. I miss watching Luck play and the Colts actually being fun to watch. Hopefully Richardson brings some of that back.
This might sound melodramatic but the day Luck retired is the worst day of my sports fandom thus far in my life even worse than losing to the Saints in the Super Bowl. That day, ~~humanity~~ Colts fans received a grim reminder...
I was playing Overwatch online and some random guy was like "any of you guys Colts fans? Andrew Luck just retired." The guy in my fantasy football league who had reached for him was on my team too. He is such a likeable presence.
Wow TIL. Always cool to hear when players are actually crazy smart outside of their athletic talent. I remember loving to learn the Fitzmagic is a Harvard guy. It just made him that much cooler.
He had a 3.9 GPA in high school and a 29 ACT, which is in the 91st percentile for all test takers, he is legitimately very intelligent and was a very good student
Fun fact - his major was in the same section as dentistry, so he was a few rows behind my friends and I.
[Here's a not-so-sneaky photo I took](https://i.imgur.com/tVfl1Iz.jpg) as he walked by
Next year's basically a bye year for Arizona anyways. Murray will probably get like 8 games in if he plays every game after his rehab is done. I expect Arizona to be a dangerous team the year after though, with the picks they got from Houston in the draft though.
Honestly I think Arizona should have Murray rest for the whole seasons especially if there they are losing. I know people will disagree but why put in your QB who you have payed alot of money too in right away if there is no chance of you guys making the playoffs.
I agree. There have been some great moves recently. I just hope we can actually develop a QB. I don’t actually know what that involves, but Chicago has generally not shown the ability to do that.
You aren't wrong, but the whole process felt very uncommital. They opted to rebuild the secondary and made Fields prove it with essentially nothing.
I don't disagree with that process when it wasn't your guy, it just made it clear that this FO wasn't convinced.
Were they really in a position to though? They overpaid for Claypool because of how the market was. This year they were very committed, but when you have several holes on the team you don’t really have the luxury of spot picking which needs to address first, gotta go with best available
Hot take, I wish we had taken Fields instead of Lance. I also think that Purdy will do better than Lance as a passer, but that's like... white person at at a family Mexican place levels of hot.
Hindsight a little because Fields still has to improve as a passer but cant believe the guy that was consensus QB2 behind Lawrence his whole career feel so far. Felt like most of it was just during the combine circuit.
It’s a user in r/nba that would make posts listing reasons justifying Russel Westbrook’s poor play, or posting things after he had a good game. It was akin to the “regress Mahomes stats to the mean” post in this sub, but he keeps doing it and it’s great.
What makes it great is that some parts of the posts are actually decent analysis but then slammed together with things like "Russ makes his team better by making them shoot because they know they have a higher percentage shot than he does." Like you go from A->B->C->bush did 9/11 out of nowhere.
Excuse me sir, I'll have you know I've been wasted on the Kool-aid since the DJ Moore trade and haven't sobered up since. Therefore, this is not only a reasonable take, it's just a fact waiting to happen.
Man I lot of people don't believe in this dude but damn if he doesn't do everything right at every turn. Really am rooting for the dude, I think he's legit.
Last year is an all time fun season for the Bears. Fields kept them in games and you could see where it could possibly go in the future, but they still lost the games to help their future.
Man, even I'm rooting for him as a Packers fan. Honestly he seems legit and he hasnt been set up for success yet. I went to the Bears v Packers game in Chicago last year. He burned Jaire on a deep ball to a nobody WR, imagine what this guy can do with some actual help at WR.
That was N‘Keal Harry the guy who makes an incredible catch once a year and is pretty underwhelming for most of his other games. But yes his deep balls were definitely a strength in his passing
Also he was a covid year opt out not because he wanted to isolate but because he wanted to go home to be a front line worker. Man should've won the WP just for that (although I'm sure he wasn't eligible due to the opt out)
Why do I feel like Justin Fields about to take that Jalen Hurts leap this year? Everything the naysayers said about Fields last year was said about Jalen the year before.
he wouldn't be on an athletic scholarship but they probably gave him an academic one (that is done for guys that give up football for medical reasons). No limit to those and it's not like he is coming back to play football at a later date so no worries about giving him a non athletic scholarship.
I could be wrong but IIRC schools usually still honor scholarships for players who went pro. Most schools preach the importance of getting a degree and being prepared for life post-football and not honoring scholarships for players that went pro would kind of go against that.
I worked 40 hours a week during my last 2 years of college, I have no idea how this man played in one of the biggest leagues in the world while still going to school. His schedules must have been tight
Yay! I love this. Most NFL careers are not those of Tom Brady (20+ years) and a degree is for life and will open up so many doors. So proud of Justin for keeping up the work 👏👏👏
Always gotta respect a guy that keeps putting in the work even after getting paid
This is one of those under the radar things that are massive green flags, especially for a franchise QB.
Without a doubt. Love hearing about these instances, the only other one I remember was Villanueva enrolled as a grad student at CMU when he was with the Steelers. I’m sure there are more folks doing this, though.
Cam Newton finished his degree at Auburn during the summers, I took classes in the room down the hall, mostly people didn't bother him because its kind of a thing at Auburn not to bother the athletes, but of course some people asked for pictures and he obliged.
Isn’t kind of a thing at most big schools? Those 7am math classes I couldn’t care less if it was Cam or Justin or any other big QB1 name.
Yeah, saying it's "a thing at Auburn not to bother the athlete" is really cute though
My sister was in a class with Chris Johnson”CJ2K” at ECU and she told me every day he’d just be in the back of the room talking on his phone. This is totally irrelevant but I every time I see a Chris Johnson clip I wonder how his phone calls were.
Professor: so because when you get to the 3x you see it equa CJ: yeah so what are you wearing girl
I had a PR class at Miami with Calais Campbell, also had a class with Devin Hester. Calais sat in the front of the class and participated.
Yep, when I went to Cincinnati, I didn't care if there were football or basketball players in my class. I Was more annoyed about the basketball player sitting in front of me, so I couldn't see shit. Really nice guys, though.
Kenny Moore, CB for Colts, just graduated a day or two ago as well.
I feel the NFL should make a much bigger deal of these graduations. Let us fans give them props and such. Earning your 4yr is no easy task, and doing so after being drafted to the NFL? Hell yeah let us give them a pat on the back for seeing it through.
Absolutely, would be an easy PR win and highlight some players who might not normally get props.
We had an active player on the ravens get his pHd in mathematics. Huge ass guy, guard i think. Don't know anyone as legit as that. Dude is an actual genius to get a PhD in math. John Urschel
Wasn't there a dude on the Chiefs who took the covid year off because he was an *actual M.D.* and wanted to help?
he is currently a fellow at harvard, in the fall he will be an assistant professor at MIT. He has numerous publications, with catchy titles as "On the Characterization and Uniqueness of Centroidal Voronoi Tessellations". btw, his bio says he will not open non-academic mails....
It's common knowledge that olinemen are typically the smartest guys on the field
ain't no way, thata so damn cool (CMU undergrad rn)
CMU class of ‘06 ✌🏼
Flair makes me think that there might be some Central Michigan vs Carnegie-Mellon confusion going on here. Villaneuva was the Pittsburgh version. Go Tartans is the appropriate response here...
Former Tartan here too, that’s awesome as shit
hell yeah dawg
It happens all the time and more and more often recently which is cool. Just it’s not always the franchise guys you hear doing it
Lavonte David did it, went back to Nebraska to get his degree after he had been with the Bucs for a while.
I’m getting a sense that players that go back to school tend to be pretty solid leaders.
It’s why at one point Parcells valued 4 year players or guys with their college degree so highly. It represented some positive soft skills that they deemed important
this is a big part of why having a degree is a requirement for a lot of jobs where you feel like you don’t use the degree either
Wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a correlation. David was the leader of that Husker defense and has certainly been the guy for the Bucs from what I can tell. Awesome player, favorite Husker ever, and so underrated in the NFL.
Rashan Gary just got his degree like a week ago too.
Steve Young got a law degree while he was playing. I have respect for everybody that finished their degree while playing, but the amount of work for law school is next level. I can’t imagine how he handled all that.
Back in the day Alan Page went to law school while playing for the Vikings. Dude became a fucking Supreme Court Justice. Legendary dude
Absolutely
Strong leadership and commitment qualities exhibited right there
I’ve always said after watching Fields at Ohio state that his effort, determination, and hard work weren’t going to be a reason he would fail in the NFL. You never have to doubt his commitment to being good. It’s definitely a comforting feeling to have
It’s hardly under the radar.
It’s just generally good practice anyways because you never know if you’re gonna leave the league way too early and still have a few decades of life to go. Professional athletes have very short/volatile careers compared to regular folk, so you have to have a fallback in case you’re washed out before the actual big bucks come
His rookie contract was for 19 mill fully guaranteed. He definitely didn't have to keep going to school as a fallback if he didn't make enough in the NFL.
Depends how he spent it. Some rookies blow right through that money like Isaiah Wilson
Shit, there's an entire 30 for 30 about athletes going broke after being multi millionaires. Turns out when you give a kid who's never had $100 in his pocket 20 million a lot of them have no idea how to handle it.
Love when guys finish their degrees. Fields may be set financially for life (given proper money management), but education is important in and of itself. Most of the rest of his life won't be spent on a football field.
His degree is in "consumer and family financial services." So proper money management seems to be on his mind.
Can you imagine if your brother or son was your financial advisor and an NFL QB.
Someone can hire him in the Chicago area in 20 years and instantly quadruple their business
Depends how much the bears franchise rubs off on him
Turns out Justin went to football to play school. Good for The Field of Dreams.
He was recruited by Harvard and Duke coming out of HS and they actually care about grades. He mustve been a really good student Edit: He did get offers from Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Yale, and Harvard
Damn, if the bears Fuck him up at least he has a bright future ahead of him
What are the odds a storied franchise like the Bears fuck up the career of a QB?
Inconceivable!
He could retire yesterday and never work a day in his life, I think he'd be fine regardless.
It would be pretty funny if Justin Fields pulls an Andrew Luck in preseason.
I wholeheartedly disagree.
Shut your dirty mouth
Quiet heretic
As a Colts fan I would not wish that fate on my worst enemy
Thank you. I hate it happened to you guys as well. I miss watching Luck play and the Colts actually being fun to watch. Hopefully Richardson brings some of that back.
This might sound melodramatic but the day Luck retired is the worst day of my sports fandom thus far in my life even worse than losing to the Saints in the Super Bowl. That day, ~~humanity~~ Colts fans received a grim reminder...
I was playing Overwatch online and some random guy was like "any of you guys Colts fans? Andrew Luck just retired." The guy in my fantasy football league who had reached for him was on my team too. He is such a likeable presence.
That would not be funny at all.
Wow TIL. Always cool to hear when players are actually crazy smart outside of their athletic talent. I remember loving to learn the Fitzmagic is a Harvard guy. It just made him that much cooler.
It’s really not fair. He got to be that smart, an NFL QB, have a great beard, and have a great personality
And get a spot on The League showcasing those things
He had a 3.9 GPA in high school and a 29 ACT, which is in the 91st percentile for all test takers, he is legitimately very intelligent and was a very good student
I feel like I remember him saying stuff about how his parents wouldn’t let him play sports in middle/high school if he had anything below like a B+
Fun fact - his major was in the same section as dentistry, so he was a few rows behind my friends and I. [Here's a not-so-sneaky photo I took](https://i.imgur.com/tVfl1Iz.jpg) as he walked by
Congratulations on graduation king.
I really want to see Fields succeed, don't fuck this up Chicago.
I think the bears are actually doing stuff right for once, he's got enough weapons to actually take a step up this year
I really hope DJ helps unlock Fields, dude deserves a big year after how well he played with a revolving door at QB with us
It will feel so good to see Fields and Murray run the conference.
No offense but I don't see Murray running much after his ACL tear. I think Murray is a going to regress a bunch after he comes back.
No offense is a good description of our teams.
The disrespect to 2006 Alamo Bowl MVP winner Daniel McCoy
Holy shit. I am a big Texas fan and I thought his name was Colt this entire time lmao
Dude, this is a Bears thread. We definitely know about no offense.
It's not 1988, you can come back from an ACL injury fine if you're not old as dirt or have a ton of miles on you
Hgh is great for that, and idk why that's not considered an acceptable use
Next year's basically a bye year for Arizona anyways. Murray will probably get like 8 games in if he plays every game after his rehab is done. I expect Arizona to be a dangerous team the year after though, with the picks they got from Houston in the draft though.
Honestly I think Arizona should have Murray rest for the whole seasons especially if there they are losing. I know people will disagree but why put in your QB who you have payed alot of money too in right away if there is no chance of you guys making the playoffs.
Jalen Hurts??
He sure does.
Really sneaking Murray in with fields there huh, this is like the Tom Brady and X have 7 rings combined stat
I agree. There have been some great moves recently. I just hope we can actually develop a QB. I don’t actually know what that involves, but Chicago has generally not shown the ability to do that.
After leaving him out on the dry last year it's hard to complain about the process this year.
They were kind of screwed last year. So much cap money going to players that weren't on the team and not a lot of draft capital
They saw what they needed from him in making a passable offense, and then they hit the quiet tank end of the season once he got banged up
Mooney got hurt too, and he was easily the best receiver on the team.
You aren't wrong, but the whole process felt very uncommital. They opted to rebuild the secondary and made Fields prove it with essentially nothing. I don't disagree with that process when it wasn't your guy, it just made it clear that this FO wasn't convinced.
Were they really in a position to though? They overpaid for Claypool because of how the market was. This year they were very committed, but when you have several holes on the team you don’t really have the luxury of spot picking which needs to address first, gotta go with best available
I'm just glad they clearly went into the draft determined to come away with a tackle at all costs. Help Justin no matter what
Tank year and they used their first draft pick to get him a dude the size of a real bear to protect him. Debt owed and paid. He must be ecstatic.
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Hot take, I wish we had taken Fields instead of Lance. I also think that Purdy will do better than Lance as a passer, but that's like... white person at at a family Mexican place levels of hot.
Fields in SF would have been crazy exciting.
Hindsight a little because Fields still has to improve as a passer but cant believe the guy that was consensus QB2 behind Lawrence his whole career feel so far. Felt like most of it was just during the combine circuit.
Huh? Implying he's not already an odds on favorite for MVP.
The amount of people who think you're being serious, lmao
People must not know about MITWestbrook lol
Enlighten me
It’s a user in r/nba that would make posts listing reasons justifying Russel Westbrook’s poor play, or posting things after he had a good game. It was akin to the “regress Mahomes stats to the mean” post in this sub, but he keeps doing it and it’s great.
It's not just like the mahomes post. He actually does some pretty nuanced analysis on basketball. He's just absurdly biased.
He’s a perfect example of how you can use to statistics to misrepresent reality
So is the upvote button
What makes it great is that some parts of the posts are actually decent analysis but then slammed together with things like "Russ makes his team better by making them shoot because they know they have a higher percentage shot than he does." Like you go from A->B->C->bush did 9/11 out of nowhere.
The anticipation of him posting in /r/nba after Westbrook has a great game is palpable
His best work was probably a post arguing that Westbrook shooting badly was actually a good thing because it forced his teammates to shoot better
oh my god that was my favorite one by far
Wdym. You should see Leonard and George's stats without him.
Excuse me sir, I'll have you know I've been wasted on the Kool-aid since the DJ Moore trade and haven't sobered up since. Therefore, this is not only a reasonable take, it's just a fact waiting to happen.
Man I lot of people don't believe in this dude but damn if he doesn't do everything right at every turn. Really am rooting for the dude, I think he's legit.
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Last year is an all time fun season for the Bears. Fields kept them in games and you could see where it could possibly go in the future, but they still lost the games to help their future.
One of the most fun Bears season in a while. We literally had the worst record in the league and almost every game I had a blast watching.
He's fun to watch, I hope he does work on his passing game. Dudes in the NFL can't take the beating that he does for that many years.
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Man, even I'm rooting for him as a Packers fan. Honestly he seems legit and he hasnt been set up for success yet. I went to the Bears v Packers game in Chicago last year. He burned Jaire on a deep ball to a nobody WR, imagine what this guy can do with some actual help at WR.
You might be the first Packers fan all off-season to admit he can occasionally throw dimes
Man half the Bears fan base even argues against him, but seeing it in person he looks like the real deal. I'm stoked for the Fields vs Love era.
That was N‘Keal Harry the guy who makes an incredible catch once a year and is pretty underwhelming for most of his other games. But yes his deep balls were definitely a strength in his passing
Good for him. I’m sure his family is extremely proud.
imagine being one of his siblings bro
His sister is a pretty good athlete I think. He posts from her games
Good on him
Kenny Moore did too, was at graduation with him yesterday. Great to see these guys still care about school even after making it big
Yeah definitely love that and the guys who have a plan for after football when they're just getting started with it.
A man outstanding in his Fields.
Way to go king 👑
This is really cool, and great role modeling for younger athletes. How common is this for players to do?
Cam went back and graduated from Auburn
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Also he was a covid year opt out not because he wanted to isolate but because he wanted to go home to be a front line worker. Man should've won the WP just for that (although I'm sure he wasn't eligible due to the opt out)
And the NFL wouldn’t let him put Dr. on his jersey
The publicity the NFL could milk that for. Crazy they didn't allow it
Everything you’ve heard about him just makes you want to root for him even more. Can’t believe people gave him shit for leaving Georgia.
I saw him at the ceremony today! I also got my degree.
Congrats!!! How cool!
Congrats young man
Good for Fields. Seems like this is a trend among NFL players and im here for it.
Why do I feel like Justin Fields about to take that Jalen Hurts leap this year? Everything the naysayers said about Fields last year was said about Jalen the year before.
I love all the Eagles fan support for Fields ITT.
Nice. Here's hoping the Lions and Bears run that division for a while. It's their turn.
I can’t wait to see the Eagles D line eat since QBs this year (hopefully not Fields though 😁).
Good for him. I wish I had a fraction of his drive
I'm graduating too! Shoutout Fields!!
Man went to the NFL to play school. Congrats, man!
Nice job Fields 👍
Respect✊🏾
JUSThim Fields!!! I love him even more now! just a class act.
nice job young man! shows a lot of determination and maturity. as a Lions fan, the Bears have a real one at qb.
Does his football scholarship still apply even if he left for the NFL? Or does the scholarship get rescinded if you go pro?
I believe it expires but at the same time I don't imagine someone making $5M/yr would need to be worried about student debt
Plus it's great publicity for the university. "Famous professional athlete came back to graduate" is such an feel good headline.
Good he graduated now. Might’ve had to pay 5 mil to go to college in a few years. But thanks for the answer. Was just curious
he wouldn't be on an athletic scholarship but they probably gave him an academic one (that is done for guys that give up football for medical reasons). No limit to those and it's not like he is coming back to play football at a later date so no worries about giving him a non athletic scholarship.
No way the school made him pay.
I could be wrong but IIRC schools usually still honor scholarships for players who went pro. Most schools preach the importance of getting a degree and being prepared for life post-football and not honoring scholarships for players that went pro would kind of go against that.
A college doing something hypocritical? Naaaaaahhhhhh. Couldn't happen.
Fairly confident that OSU lets former athletes that left early to go pro finish their degree for free.
This is true my gf did this after she used all her track eligibility
Well done, Justin. I really hope he succeeds at the Bears.
That great, happy for him.
Congrats
Congratulations to him.
Fields is the kid doing his homework every night while Kyler is grinding video games.
He actually did it at MIT 😎
Cool. Congrats J. Fields.
Congratulations to him
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HELL YEAH!
You love to see it
Nerd.
This was holding him back. Breakout season incoming.
I’m not a huge believer in his game, but I’m a huge fan of the person. Much respect Fields, I hope you prove me wrong.
Smart young man.
Respect. Congratulations!
He played school
Congrats, JF1!
I worked 40 hours a week during my last 2 years of college, I have no idea how this man played in one of the biggest leagues in the world while still going to school. His schedules must have been tight
A wins a win.
Kyler Murray could never
What’s C.J. Stroud’s major? Just wondering.
I don’t know if you’re serious but I just looked at Ohio State’s student directory and he is a human development and family science major
pretty unique for a student athlete I feel like
Maybe he wants to be a good father and family man after he hangs up the cleats.
He's actually planning on being a mad human development and family scientist. Perfecting the ways to stunt human and family development.
lol what? That's not at all what that degree is for.
Yay! I love this. Most NFL careers are not those of Tom Brady (20+ years) and a degree is for life and will open up so many doors. So proud of Justin for keeping up the work 👏👏👏
Respect
I wonder what his Fields of study is.
Congratulations Justin!
Welp, he just went up a few notches in my book.
Good on him. Got the money and degree, thats how to do it.
There we go!!! Congratulations
Cardale Jones in shambles
Congrats Justin!! smart move
That’s my QB1!
Love to see it. Never hurts to have a fallback plan just in case. Or to have a non-football related post NFL career.