Brian Banks, whose promising football career was cut short when he was imprisoned for rape before he could begin playing for USC, and who was recently exonerated after five years in prison after his accuser admitted she made the claim up, is now hoping some NFL team will give him a chance. But that chance will not come from the Dolphins.
After Florio proposed that the Dolphins could be the right team to give Banks a shot, the team gave a statement to PFT saying that shot is not forthcoming from Miami.
“We did our due diligence but did not invite him to a tryout,” the team said.
The 26-year-old Banks had his life derailed by the false accusation, and everyone who knows his story has to root for him. But he’s going to have an extremely difficult time making it to the NFL. It’s very rare to play in the NFL without playing college football, and it’s also very rare for any athlete to spend several years out of competition and be able to come back and perform at a high level. Banks probably won’t be playing in the NFL.
But Banks has lined up a tryout with the Seahawks, and if he ends up on their 90-man roster, he’d be one of the best stories of the NFL offseason.