Few people want the lockout to end as badly as the hundreds of former college football players who weren’t drafted but are good enough to get invited to a training camp as an undrafted free agent. For those players, the lockout is a waiting game, as they wonder whether they’ll get a real shot at the NFL, or whether a lengthy lockout will be followed by an abbreviated preseason that doesn’t give undrafted players enough time to prove themselves.
One such undrafted player is Dain Taylor, an outside linebacker from Drake who had 13.5 sacks at the Division I-AA level last year and who’s now living with his parents, working out, and hoping the lockout ends soon.
“I know my mom wants me to get a job,” Taylor told the Denver Post, “but she also understands that this is my dream, so she’s going to support me for a while, for a reasonable amount of time.”
Taylor hasn’t lost confidence in his abilities.
“It’s rough,” said Taylor. “You have to put your priorities in order and rethink the whole situation. I know I’m good enough to play in the NFL. I just need to get a shot.”
But he has no way of knowing when he might get that shot.