LABOR OF LOVE
Shepherd has done everything in power to live NFL dream
Nathan Shepherd showed he is a fast learner at the Jets’ rookie minicamp this weekend.
The 6-foot-4, 315-pound defensive end was asked his impressions of first-round pick Sam Darnold, his new teammate and the man he was facing in these first few practices.
“I stayed away from him,” Shepherd said with a smile. “No sir. You see that red [jersey] and you turn the other way.”
The Jets are thrilled that Shepherd, their third-round draft pick, avoided any collisions with Darnold right now, but they are hoping he can inflict some pain on opposing quarterbacks this fall.
Shepherd comes to the Jets from Division II Fort Hays State. He had one of the most unusual paths to the NFL of anyone in this year’s draft. The 24-year-old from Ajax, Ontario, began his college career at Simon Fraser in British Columbia, dropped out when he could not afford it, worked odd jobs to save up money and then went to Fort Hays, becoming just the third player in the school’s history to get drafted.
“It says a lot about the man,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said Saturday. “He’s determined to succeed no matter what he does. He carries himself that way and works that way. I appreciate that.”
Shepherd has experienced things most rookies cannot relate to. He has worked as a mover, worked in a boxing factory and a plant nursery. For him to realize his NFL dream, he had to keep faith in himself.
Did he ever wake up and question, “Was it worth it?”
“Most mornings, because you’re thinking I’ve got to go to work and this check isn’t really doing anything to improve my life today that I can see,” Shepherd said. “That was difficult. You’ve just got to keep the dream alive and know that you’re that much closer.”
Fort Hays State coach Chris Brown first heard about Shepherd from one of his assistant coaches, who had been tipped off by a friend at a junior college. Brown invited Shepherd to walk on in the spring of 2015.
“He sat out for two years [before Fort Hays]. We didn’t know if the kid could play football anymore,” Brown said by phone Saturday. “Was he in shape? Is it going to take some time for him to get back into football mode? We had him walk on that first year, that spring. He earned a scholarship after that and he’s been a pretty amazing story since then.”
In 2015, Shepherd had five tackles for a loss and three sacks. He followed that up the next year with 9.5 tackles for a loss and three sacks. Last season, he had 12.5 tackles for a loss and four sacks.
“Every year he got better and better and better,” Brown said. “It was just tremendous to see how much improvement he made in three years’ time. He worked and competed and hit the weight room and did things before and after practice and made himself into a good football player.”
Brown said Shepherd is a student of the game who studies film and can recognize plays before they happen.
“He’s got great explosiveness off the ball,” Brown said. “He’s got one of the strongest punches I’ve ever seen off the ball and he has a motor. He never quits. He’s going to go 100 miles an hour on every single play.”
The two years away from football gave Shepherd an appreciation for the game that is lacking in some rookies.
“Nothing is going to come easy,” he said. “It’s really going to ask you to reflect on how much football means to you because you’re not making money, you’re just getting by. When you’re looking at it, you’re saying, ‘Am I getting ahead in life or am I just scraping by?’ Everyone wants to get ahead in life. For a large portion of my amateur status as an athlete, it was just scraping by. Now that I’m here, I feel like I’m getting the pay I deserve for all the hard work I was doing in the past.”