Nick Tiano has only been in the NFL for a few hours, but he already has a story to share someday with the grandchildren.
The former Baylor School and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga quarterback was not among the 10 quarterbacks drafted Thursday night through Saturday afternoon, nor was he among the 10 quarterbacks announced Saturday night as free-agent signees.
In fact, this past weekend was anything but the dream of a lifetime he was expecting.
“It’s been a long 48 hours,” Tiano said Monday afternoon before recalling the chaos. “Right at the start of the sixth round, about five or six teams started calling, and we were thinking we were going to get picked. Everything was looking really good. My agent and I had decided that if we had not been picked by pick 240 (out of 255), then we would agree to terms with one of these teams as a free agent. We agreed with a team as the draft ended, and we were good, but then about 10 minutes later, we got a call from that team telling us they had done their numbers wrong and that they weren’t going to have room.
“I was crushed. We called back to the other teams that had offered us deals, and they had already agreed to terms with the next quarterback on their list.”