The path from college (university) student to millionaire is short for talented athletes. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Olumiyiwa Fashanu and Rome Odunze — both of Nigerian heritage — will be among current college players that will walk that short path. All two are ranked highly by multiple organizations and are likely to command lucrative contracts next year.
College players like Fashanu and Odunze join NFL teams mainly through a draft where all 32 teams take turns to select players. The worst NFL team each year drafts first the next year. Each team picks the player that it believes best meets its needs. Drafting is not a pure science. Hence projections of how a player ranks are like opinion polls and could change from week to week. The rankings also differ by who is doing them.
By projections from ESPN, Fashanu and Odunze are likely to be picked 3rd and 8th respectively in the draft next April. Both play two important positions in football. Fashonu is an Offensive Tackle (OT) for the Littany Lions of the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). Odunze is a Wide Receiver (WR) for the Washington University Huskies. Both players are juniors and will be leaving college before they graduate.
The first function of an OT is to protect the Quarterback (QB) from the swarm of opposing players who try to “rush” the QB so that he won’t make a good throw. The OT steps in front of those rushers to give the QB a little time in a game where seconds make a big difference. When the QB is not throwing the ball, he hands it to a Running Back (RB). In a running play, the OT acts like Moses parting the red sea to let the Hebrews too. He tries to create a path between opposing player that the RB can run through.
Wide Receivers, also known as wide outs, are relatively tall and slim players who catch passed balls from the QB and try to run at high speed toward the opponent’s goal. When they are not catching balls, WRs join the OTs to protect the QB or clear a path for the RB.
NFL contracts are complex but we can guess how much Odunze and Fashonu will make in 2024 by reviewing the contracts of players who were ranked similarly in the 2023 draft or played similar positions .
The Houston Texans picked Will Anderson, a Linebacker (LB) from Alabama University, as the third player selected in the 2023 draft. According to Sportrac, Anderson signed a four-year contract with a total value of $35 million, a number that includes incentives for performance and for just staying on the team roster. Sportrac estimates that Anderson will collect $23 million in the current season.
Teams may value LBs and OTs differently hence Fashanu’s pay may not be same as that of Anderson. But Fashanu is not likely to earn less than Paris Johnson from Ohio State who the Arizona Cardinals drafted number six in 2023. Johnson signed a four year contract worth $28 million with the Cardinals.
Turning to Odunze, the Atlanta Falcons took Bijon Robinson, a RB from Texas, as the 8th pick of the 2023 draft. His contract with the Falcons was for $22 million, with about $13 million to be paid in the 2023 season. Odunze, as a WR may get a richer contract since WRs usually make more than RBs. And Odunze can take comfort in the fact that the highest drafted WR in 2023 , who went at number 20 to the Seattle Seahawks , signed a contract for $14.4 million with the team. Coincidentally, he too is an African, Jaxon-Smith Njigba of Sierra Leone.
