Every summer, a handful of players walk into training camp and walk out of training camp with something nobody expected. Sometimes a roster spot. Sometimes a starting job. In rare cases, a career that ends with a gold jacket.
The stories are not always dramatic in the moment, but they tend to age well. With NFL training camps underway and the preseason approaching, it is worth remembering the players who used this time of year to rewrite their professional fates. The list spans generations and positions, but the common thread is the same. Someone gave them a chance, and they made the most of it.
The hits that changed everything
Terrell Davis is the most famous example. A sixth-round pick out of Georgia in 1995, Davis arrived in Denver buried deep on a depth chart that gave him little apparent path forward. What changed was a moment that happened far from home, a thunderous hit Davis delivered on kickoff coverage during a preseason game in Tokyo. The Broncos’ evaluators noticed something in the violence and intent of that play that statistics could not have measured. Davis went on to rush for 1,117 yards as a rookie and eventually won the Super Bowl MVP award twice and a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Malcolm Butler’s training camp story is different in kind but similar in spirit. An undrafted cornerback from Division II West Alabama who had worked at Popeyes, Butler earned a tryout with the Patriots in 2014 and got the 90th spot on the roster, which is to say the last. He earned the nickname Strap from teammates for his relentless coverage technique in practice. That technique translated directly to Super Bowl XLIX, where he intercepted a pass at the goal line with 20 seconds left to save the championship.
Victor Cruz had one of the more spectacular single-game preseason performances in memory. An undrafted receiver out of UMass, Cruz caught six passes for 145 yards and three touchdowns against the Jets in his 2010 debut, prompting the opposing head coach to ask who No. 3 was in terms that are not printable here. Cruz spent that year on injured reserve but launched from there into a career that included a Super Bowl ring and a place in franchise history.
From college courts to NFL glory
Antonio Gates played basketball at Kent State because his NFL prospects seemed limited. When it became clear the NBA was not going to happen either, he signed with the Chargers as an undrafted free agent in 2003 and arrived at camp to compete for one of two remaining roster spots. Gates used his basketball instincts to manipulate angles and exploit coverage mismatches, and he secured that spot. He retired as the all-time leader in career touchdowns by a tight end with 116.
Arian Foster’s path was similar in its improbability. He went undrafted in 2009 and landed on Houston’s practice squad before getting his chance. By the time his rookie year ended he had shown enough to anchor the Texans’ backfield, and by 2010 he led the entire NFL with 2,220 scrimmage yards.
What these stories mean now
This year’s training camps are already producing their own versions of these moments. Somewhere at a training camp facility across the country, a player most fans have never heard of is making plays that the coaching staff will remember when training camp roster cuts arrive. Some of them will make the team. A few of them will stick around long enough to matter. One or two might be making their version of Terrell Davis’s hit in Tokyo, though nobody will know it yet.
The training camp preseason exists partly for coaches to evaluate quarterbacks and offensive systems and partly for moments like these, the ones that cannot be fully scripted because they depend on a kind of desperation and hunger that only comes from having very little and needing very much to hold on.
The names above are proof that it can still happen.
