Columbia football players eye NFL dreams
Washington, along with fellow senior defensive linemen Toba Akinleye, Niko Padilla, and Hunter Little, journeyed north to the Bronx for the Pro Day, a six-drill test of athleticism without football pads.
But despite the promise of having the NFL contingent present, there are more than 200 other Pro Days scheduled across the country before the draft, from April 28-30, with getting drafted being far from guaranteed.
Some players are hoping to latch onto teams as free agents after the draft, but others will look to the Canadian Football League, arena football, or overseas to continue their professional dreams.
Light Blue head coach Al Bagnoli points to undrafted free agents as those most likely to make it from the Ivy League, considering that scouts tend to overlook the play of Football Championship Subdivision schools, of which the Ivy League is a member.
Emory Hunt, a Football Gameplan contributor, believes that Washington could get drafted in the second or third round, but he acknowledges that NFL teams utilize different scouting criteria.
“You got a chance to see how impactful Chad Washington can be against the run because he was able to get off the blocks with ease, make plays at or behind the line of scrimmage, and the few times that Princeton attempted to throw the football, Washington made his presence felt by being very disruptive,” Hunt said.
Washington’s 4.88 40-yard dash time as a defensive lineman and both Akinleye’s 10-foot broad jump and 35-inch vertical also caught scouts’ eyes.
Akinleye wasn’t quite as fast in the 40-yard dash with a time of 4.87 as an outside linebacker, but as one scout commented at the beginning of the Pro Day, “He is the one guy that really looks the part.” Having prepared several players for the NFL draft during his time at Maine, King explained that he guided the players on everything from Pro Day workouts to interviews.
“I feel like everyone who plays collegiate football or high school football, they want to play at the highest level,” Akinleye said.