National Football League

Warren Moon, Kurt Warner, others share how undrafted players can find NFL success

Published Sep. 25, 2024 7:57 a.m. ET

Coming out of the 49ers' 32-19 season-opening victory over the New York Jets, the player of the game wasn't any of San Francisco's well-known stars. Instead, that honor went to Jordan Mason, unknown to the casual NFL fan prior to that Monday night.

With superstar running back Christian McCaffrey inactive due to injury, Mason made his first NFL start in prime time — and stole the show. The third-year pro registered 28 carries for 147 yards (5.3 yards per carry) and a touchdown, the centerpiece of a rushing attack that overwhelmed the Jets. The last time Mason had that many carries or rushing yards in a single game? A 2016 high school contest.

And here's the distinguishing factor about Mason: He's a former undrafted free agent.

Signed by the 49ers after the 2022 draft, the former Georgia Tech standout has been a mainstay as a core special teamer, missing only one game since joining the franchise.

"He came in pretty mature," left tackle Trent Williams said of Mason after the season opener. "Even being the third or fourth back, he was always ready. … He earned everybody's respect."

Tom Brady’s 3 Stars of Week 1: Micah Parsons, Jordan Mason and Baker Mayfield

Mason is just one of the many undrafted players who will shape the 2024 season. Undrafted free agents represent a significant share of the player population — roughly a third each season — but they get the shortest end of the stick in a league with short careers and few guarantees. While their paths of perseverance and overcoming adversity are generally understood, the specifics of their stories can often go overlooked.

FOX Sports spoke with several former undrafted free agents, both current players and retired legends, about their experiences with the UDFA label — and their appreciation for it.

‘They were wondering what happened to me'

For Warren Moon, undrafted status brought obscurity early in his professional career.

The Pro Football Hall of Famer's journey is well-documented — from Canadian Football League star to 17 seasons in the NFL, where he was a nine-time Pro Bowler and the 1990 Offensive Player of the Year. He was the first Black quarterback and the first undrafted quarterback enshrined in Canton.

Moon was a prominent college football player at Washington — in the 1977 season, he led the Huskies to a Pac-8 title and a victory over Michigan in the Rose Bowl, where he was named MVP. But after receiving intel that he'd be selected late in the draft (if at all) — and then be asked to switch positions — Moon began his professional career in the CFL.

Not playing in the NFL out of college hurt Moon, so much so that he felt betrayed by his country. And playing in Canada, he literally dropped off the radar in America. Consistent live broadcasts of CFL games didn't gain traction in the U.S. until the 1980s.

During the 1982 NFL players' strike, with games canceled, NBC broadcast CFL games for a time, putting Moon back in front of an American audience.

"People started to say, ‘Oh, that's where he went. Oh, he's up in Canada,'" Moon told FOX Sports. "People were telling me that. They were wondering what happened to me."

Warren Moon was playing for the Edmonton Eskimos in 1982 when Canadian Football League games started getting air time in the U.S. due to the NFL players' strike. (Photo by David Madison / Getty Images)

Moon won five consecutive Grey Cups (the CFL's equivalent of the Super Bowl). He was a two-time CFL MVP. He made a lot of money. He didn't have to deal with the racism he faced in the U.S. He was comfortable in Canada.

Still, he couldn't resist the urge to play in the NFL.

"In the back of my mind, you're still watching NFL games [and thinking]: ‘Am I good enough to play?'" said Moon, who signed with the Houston Oilers ahead of the 1984 season after a bidding war for his services. "These people told me I wasn't good enough. Can I make it at that level? And that burning desire is what brought me back."

A vote of confidence

Entering the NFL, Kenny Moore II felt impostor syndrome.

Today, the Colts star is arguably the league's best nickelback, a player who has signed two record-setting deals for his position. But coming out of Valdosta State in 2017, he saw himself as less confident than everyone else.

He originally signed with the Patriots, who were coming off their historic Super Bowl LI comeback victory over the Atlanta Falcons. Around the locker room were established players who'd been through multiple Super Bowls together, headlined by quarterback Tom Brady, now considered the greatest player of all time. Moore's own position group featured the likes of Stephon Gilmore and Malcolm Butler, the Super Bowl XLIX hero.

Then there was Moore, a Division II undrafted rookie with a $2,000 signing bonus.

Despite his humble NFL beginnings as an undrafted player out of Division II Valdosta State, Kenny Moore II has become a star with the Colts. (Photo by Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

After a training camp and preseason in which he gave his all and impressed the Patriots, Moore was cut anyway. It marked the first time he'd been "fired" as a football player, the first time he'd been told he wasn't good enough. But he remembers vividly a conversation with coach Bill Belichick, talking in a hallway after he'd received the news.

Belichick's message: You did all you could.

"To hear that from one of the greatest coaches ever — and his type of criticism that went into the game, his type of corrections [of my game] — he had already given me all the tools that I needed to take the next step," Moore told FOX Sports. "So wherever I landed after that, I knew I was equipped. I laid my head down that night with relief, with a lot of humility, just to wake up the next day not knowing what was going to happen, but I knew I was ready for it.

"The next day, I was flying to Indy."

Handling the adversity

Outside linebacker Caleb Murphy made the Titans' roster last season as an undrafted rookie from Division II Ferris State, where he set the NCAA single-season record with 25.5 sacks and tied the NCAA record with 39 tackles for loss.

He admits his rookie season was hard for him. Despite starring in the preseason, he was inactive for all but three regular-season games.

That experience has helped him learn to prioritize his mental health. After being alone in Nashville last season, having family live with him this year has helped.

Now in his second NFL season, Caleb Murphy has played in a handful of games as a backup linebacker for the Titans. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)

"You can't make everyone active, and I was just the guy they chose not to make active most games," Murphy told FOX Sports. "Just talking to people [about mental struggles]. You've got to communicate. Sticking to yourself and figuring it out on your own never works. You have to let it out because there's a lot of stuff going on that you can't control. You have to be able to communicate to someone how you feel.

"I take pride in being here — just because I am here," he continued. "Any undrafted guy should be happy if they make the 53. … I pride myself on that every day."

Playing to your strengths

What's the key to sticking around a team, to having staying power in the NFL as an undrafted player? According to Kurt Warner, like Moon an undrafted quarterback who wound up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it's leaning into your strengths.

Many UDFAs don't possess the physical attributes of a top draft pick, but Warner says they have special traits within them. That's what he believes epitomized his career — from college at Northern Iowa to a tryout with the Green Bay Packers, to stocking shelves at a grocery store, to graduate assistant at his alma mater, to the Arena Football League, to Rams backup and to becoming an NFL starting quarterback for the first time at age 28.

"I had things that I could do that were I think as good as anybody that's ever played the game," Warner told FOX Sports. "Not having [certain] skills may have been why I was undrafted and went the route that I did. But it was those skills that were still there that allowed me to separate myself whenever I was on the football field."

Warner, the only undrafted player to be named NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP, built a reputation as a top playoff performer. He owns three of the top six passing yard totals in Super Bowl history.

Kurt Warner was MVP of Super Bowl XXXIV after throwing for 414 yards and two TDs in the Rams' 23-16 win over the Tennessee Titans. (STEVE SCHAEFER/AFP via Getty Images)

"At some point, you've got to recognize, ‘Hey, I can't make throws like Patrick Mahomes. I can't run like Lamar Jackson. So I'm going to focus on the things that I do well. And I'm going to continue to get better at those things, because if I'm going to separate myself, it's going to be in these areas,'" Warner added. "And so I think it's really important for undrafted guys to have confidence in who they are, to recognize what their skill set is and what they bring that's unique to the table, and make sure they're continuing to focus on that.

"I think it's very, very important to showcase those things and to recognize those things in ourselves, so we can play to our strengths and take advantage of every opportunity that we're given."

‘I didn't want the journey I had'

Warner doesn't know that he fully appreciated his football journey, captured in the 2021 biographical sports film "American Underdog," until it was over. But he started to gain some idea early in his NFL career, realizing how his unconventional path forced him to become a better player. He became a more complete person. His character developed in a different way.

And he's appreciative for what all that brought him.

"For so long, I didn't want the journey that I had," Warner said. "I didn't want to talk about being the grocery store guy. I wanted to talk about, ‘Hey, I made it and I belong in the same category as these other great players of this era.' And not just because I was undrafted or not because I worked in a grocery store and now I'm doing this, but I wanted my accomplishments to stand alone.

"Then eventually, you start to embrace being different, things being different and doing things in a different way. And the fact that nobody will ever have my story. That's the kind of stuff you embrace when it's all said and done."

As a Hall of Famer, Warner now embraces his journey from undrafted status to Canton. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images)

Moore believes he'd get more attention if he played for a franchise in a bigger market. He believes that if he had been an early to mid-round pick, he'd be a four- or five-time Pro Bowler by now, instead of a one-time Pro Bowler.

He also believes that, as a former undrafted player, he has to work harder for recognition. And he considers nickelback a "dirty job" that's "not very pretty to highlight" on the side of the ball that gets less attention.

"It marries up with everything that I've endured to keep proving it — not to others, but to myself," Moore said. "That I can still go get it out in the mud. I can still be behind the 8-ball and still make something shake with that.

"When we're talking about a guy who's in his eighth year in the league, being undrafted, it's been everything I hoped for," he continued. "It's been everything I've worked for. … I'm in the stretch line every single day before practice just thinking about how blessed I am. It's really that. It's really that these days, because the NFL is hard enough to make it and make dreams come true.

"I got a huge appreciation because I know where I came from."

Against the odds

At the end of August, the Titans posted a now-viral video of general manager Ran Carthon and head coach Brian Callahan informing five on-the-bubble players that they'd made Tennessee's initial 53-man roster.

One of those players was David Martin-Robinson, an undrafted rookie tight end from Temple.

"You gave me the opportunity," Martin-Robinson said in the video, expressing gratitude. "It's all I wanted and needed."

The ensuing weekend, Martin-Robinson went home to Pennsylvania. He celebrated the news with family and friends. A neighbor even gave Martin-Robinson a pack of lottery tickets as a gift.

That's when a cousin chimed in.

"Yo, what do the odds say on that ticket right there?"

Martin-Robinson checked.

"You don't even need that," the cousin continued. "You've already won the lotto!"

"That hit hard," Martin-Robinson told FOX Sports of the interaction. "When I sit down and think about it, it is something I am very proud of, you know? There aren't very many that get to say they've done it and that they've made it to this point.

"At the same time, I'm excited to keep going."

Ben Arthur is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was the Titans beat writer for a year and a half. He covered the Seattle Seahawks for SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) prior to moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benyarthur.

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