Training for 2020 draft has become an exercise in chaos which Josh Hammond is handling
Let’s agree these are strange times and we have all been affected in some way by circumstances no one expected. Now, the measure of people is how they react. How they adjust.
Now, the people that overcome are the ones that will prosper.
So let me introduce you to Josh Hammond ... the master of adjusting. And overcoming. And rising above unexpected circumstances.
Hammond, a 6-foot, 195-pound wide receiver, returner and special teams player at the University of Florida, finished his college career with designs on getting an NFL opportunity this spring.
He began preparing for the NFL combine and the draft, which happens next week, and figured he would follow his brother Frankie Hammond, who played two years for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2014-2015, into the NFL.
Then the craziness began.
First Hammond, who caught 87 passes in his four seasons at Florida, was not invited to the NFL Combine. Then the Coronavirus hit. And the Gators’ Pro Day was canceled. And local parks began to shut down, limiting training opportunities. Then NFL team facilities were closed and prospects not allowed to visit as part of the usual predraft vetting process.
“I think it’s a different type of adversity that we’ve been thrown and something we have to deal with,” Hammond said by phone this week. “From a player perspective, there isn’t anything you can do except try to get your name out there. At least for me, trying to get your name out there and becoming more relevant so teams are still aware of you because they didn’t get to see you at your pro day.
“You’re hoping they don’t forget you or lose you in the mix because they’re getting a bunch of different videos, and I’m sure they’re getting a bunch of different calls from a bunch of different people around the country that didn’t have an opportunity to go through a pro day. And they still have the guys they did witness on their pro days ...”
Yeah, it’s strange for the teams. And uncomfortable for the draft prospects.
And Hammond isn’t alone in this strange situation, but it has affected him in some ways much differently than other prospects.
Start with the fact he wasn’t invited to the Combine. That’s never a plus for a prospect but it can be overcome because teams see all the players at pro days around the country. But this year there were only a handful of such pro days.
So a 2020 Combine snub has the potential to hurt more than most other years.
“It definitely sucks when they make a list of athletes that are supposed to be the top guys in the country and you don’t get picked,” Hammond said. “So for me, that put a chip on my shoulder. I felt like the NFL or whoever picks for the combine didn’t feel I was one of the top players in the country to go and compete and show my talents there.
“It definitely sucks but it is out of my control so I don’t let it get under my skin and bother me too much. It doesn’t have much affect on me as a person and what I believe in. I’m still going to work as hard as I can to put myself in the best situation to make a team.”
About that: Hammond, a likely a third day or priority free agent prospect, recovered quite nicely by being among the first group of players in the country to get a virtual pro day in the books and sent to teams.
On March 18, as facilities and parks around the country were first being locked up, Hammond and others got onto a field to tape a virtual pro day his agent Sammy Spina has sent to all 32 teams.
“He was able to run his 40. He was able to do his broad jump, his vert, his bench. It definitely worked out,” Spina said. “Considering all things, Josh did exceptional. That wasn’t supposed to be his pro day date.
“He had only two days to prepare for it. So he really had to get his mind-set right very quickly. He was able to get ready despite the quick turnaround from a physical recovery standpoint and go out and perform well.”
Spina makes it sound much simpler than it actually was. Because the agent had to hire a video crew, with three cameras. He also hired Richard Shelton, a former NFL cornerback and Tennessee Titans scout, to run the pro day and authenticate the times and other statistics.
And, oh yeah, Hammond had been training for Florida’s March 31 Pro Day. That’s when he was supposed to peak physically. Not two weeks earlier.
“I found out on a Monday we were going to try to do it Wednesday,” Hammond said. “But it wasn’t definite. We worked out Monday, Tuesday, then Tuesday afternoon we got the definite call that it’s happening tomorrow.
“They said, ‘You guys have to kind of just figure it out. You know what you’re supposed to do. Try to put up the best numbers you can because this might be the only chance you get because a week from now, all the parks will be closed and you won’t be able to do a pro day anymore. Which happened.”
So on Wednesday morning a group of athletes, their agents, and the camera crew showed up at Flamingo Park in Broward County.
“All the gates are locked,” Hammond said. “We can’t find any way in, they’re telling us it’s shut down. So we go to Nova Southeastern University high school ...”
The facility was open. But security didn’t let the group onto the field.
So the group finally found an available field at Tequesta Trace Park in Weston.
“We drove out there, tried to rush everything because we didn’t know if things would get shut down,” Hammond said. “So we warmed up for 15 minutes and got rolling.”
The big receiver ran a 4.53 time in the 40-yard dash.
“Just being able to go out there and get a positive number was definitely a good thing,” Hammond said.
Hammond and high school teammate quarterback Tyler Huntley, who played at Utah, have continued to train. But a seemingly simple regimen is peppered with uncertainty.
Hammond trains on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. On Wednesdays he and Huntley try to find a field where the quarterback can throw to his receiver because, well, it’s football.
“You have to go out there in a leap of faith and hope nobody bothers you so you can get your work in,” Hammond said. “You try to get it in as quickly as possible and get out.
“Sometimes you see it before it even happens that it’s not going to happen because you see the police car coming into the parking lot with sirens on. You know what they’re coming for. They don’t do it in, like, an aggressive way, they just say we can’t be on the field.”
All that despite this fact: “We’re definitely six feet apart,” Hammond said.
For all its attention to detail and game planning and incessant practice, the NFL is rarely about order. “It’s all about chaos and how you react to it,” Hammond said.
That being true, players like Hammond have become quite familiar this spring with handling chaos.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 12:57 AM.
