🦆 How Duck Dynasty Created a HOF NFL Quarterback

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A bit of personal news, by the time you’re reading this, I will officially be:

• 3 days out from closing on my first house

• 7 days out from getting married

• 9 days out from my honeymoon

Rest assured, I’m taking a break from significant life events starting June 16, but I do need your help with something at the end.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: This NBA Star is About to Complete His Inspiring Comeback

📉 Biggest Loser: An NFL Player Just Lost $2M Because of Two Snaps

🏆 Winner’s Circle: How Duck Dynasty Created a HOF Quarterback

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🗞 The Big Story

Alex Caruso is about to complete one of the greatest comebacks in NBA history, and he only has one man to thank for pulling it off.

Background: Growing up as a ball-boy for Texas A&M, it was always Caruso’s dream to be a four-year starter for the Aggies. However, upon graduating in 2016, the 6’5”, 180-pound shooting guard didn’t have the stats to command much attention from NBA scouts.

Alex Caruso College Averages (‘12-’16)

• 8.0 PTS

• 4.7 AST

• 45.5% FG%

• 34.0% FG3%

So, after going undrafted in 2016, Caruso was about to book a plane ticket to Poland to play overseas when he got a call from the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s G-League team, who signed him to a 1-year, minimum contract worth just $543,000.

However, this was all the opportunity Caruso needed, as he played in all 50 games for the Blue that year, averaging 11.9 points per game, and proving why he was named First Team All-Defense in the SEC. And less than a year later, he was making his NBA debut with the Los Angeles Lakers, becoming a key piece in the team’s 2020 Championship run.

Caruso’s Journey Back: But after the team refused to sign him to a longer-term deal, Caruso opted to sign with the Chicago Bulls, where he went on to lose 125 games in three seasons. However, after a trade involving Josh Giddey, Caruso found himself back in OKC.

And the best part is, the coach who traded for him this time around, Mark Daigneault, is the same coach of that Oklahoma City Blue team that gave Caruso his very first shot in the NBA almost 10 years ago.

Talk about a full-circle moment.

📉 Biggest Loser

This offensive lineman just lost over $2 million because of two plays, but not for the reason you might think.

Predetermined Draft Salaries: Every player that’s picked in the NFL Draft has a predetermined salary based on where they’re selected. This number is obviously higher the closer you are to the number 1 overall pick, and it increases along with the salary cap.

However, things get a bit more complicated if you’re not drafted in the first round, and nobody knows that better than Sean Rhyan.

The Rules: Rhyan was drafted by the Green Bay Packers with the 92nd pick in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft. This landed the UCLA lineman a four-year, $5 million deal that included a base salary of $470,000 in his rookie year, rising to $1.36 million by the final year of his contract (2025).

And per NFL rules, since Rhyan was drafted within rounds 3-7, he was eligible for a raise if he played at least 35% of snaps during his first three years with the team.

All Odds Against Rhyan: However, after getting suspended for six games during his rookie season and not playing a single offensive snap, and only playing 16.7% of the total snaps his second year as a backup, it seemed pretty unlikely that Rhyan was going to qualify for this $2.04 million bump in pay.

But then, last year, after splitting snaps with another player to start the season, Rhyan became the team’s full-time right guard, only missing 8 snaps after Week 9, which came in the second quarter of a Week 14 game at Detroit.

Just Missed the Cut: However, when it came time to calculate his total percentage of snaps played, Rhyan came in at 34.952% (1,144 out of 3,272), just two snaps short of what he needed to more than double his salary this year.

To make matters even worse, public data on Pro Football Reference shows that Rhyan actually did play in 35% of snaps over the last three years; however, this data is deemed unofficial by the league and the team.

Still, even if the Packers wanted to, they couldn’t give Rhyan the extra $2 million without signing him to a longer-term deal, and given the fact that Rhyan will likely be competing for a starting spot this year, it seems like he’ll have to earn his $2 million the hard way.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

This man is responsible for one of the greatest careers in NFL history. Here’s the wild story:

Background: Before Phil Robertson was making millions selling duck calls, he was living in rural Louisiana with his six siblings and no electricity or running water. However, that didn’t stop him from becoming a high school all-state athlete in track, baseball, and football.

This earned him a scholarship to nearby Louisiana Tech to play quarterback in the late 1960s.

Now, Robertson’s coaches and teammates frequently compared his arm strength and quick release to that of Joe Namath, but his stats during his two seasons starting for the Bulldogs didn’t seem to back those claims up:

Phil Robertson Career Stats (1966-1967)

• 43.5% CMP%

• 2,237 YD

• 12 TD

• 34 INT

Turning Down the NFL: Still, even though Louisiana Tech went a disappointing 8-20 during his time as the starter, Robertson had legendary coaches, like Alabama’s Bear Bryant, calling him “one of the best prospects he’s ever seen.”

Robertson even received a $60,000 offer to play for the Washington Redskins but turned it down because football season conflicted too much with hunting season.

And even though Robertson never made it to the NFL, that doesn’t mean he didn’t still have a massive impact on the league.

The Butterfly Effect: That’s because before his senior year at Louisiana Tech, Robertson decided to quit football altogether, in part so he could hunt more, but also because he realized that his backup for the past two years was way more passionate about the game than he was.

And this back-up in question? Well, it was none other than NFL Hall of Famer and 4-time Super Bowl Champion Terry Bradshaw.

Bradshaw himself even says that if Robertson hadn’t walked away before his junior season, he would have likely never become an All-American that year and probably would have never been drafted No. 1 overall to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

At least you can say things worked out pretty well for Phil Robertson, too.

⏱️ In Other News

• MLB Just Invested $10M+ Into a Softball League

• Last Year, He Was Selling Cars. Tuesday, He Hit His First Professional Home Run.

• Meet the Most Famous NBA Fan in the World: Jiggly Boy

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

If you made it this far, I assume you’re a die-hard BOTN reader - so thank you! This is the 74th week in a row I’ve sent the newsletter, and I don’t plan on breaking that streak anytime soon!

However, in an effort to plan ahead (see intro), I’ll be scheduling out next week’s edition a little earlier than usual, and I need help picking the subject matter:

Thanks for the input!