Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson recently answered some of his fans’ questions regarding whether he still has any regrets about not playing in the NFL. The global star spoke about how never making it to the NFL was the best thing that ever happened to him and kick-started his legendary WWE career.
Before becoming a global star, Johnson worked extremely hard at football in order to overcome financial hardship. He spoke about how he wanted to sign an NFL contract in order to help his family escape their trailer parks and apartments, allowing his parents to have their first-ever house and him to have his first car with no debt.
Rather than making excuses or pointing to politics, Johnson has taken full responsibility for his failures in the sport. He admitted in the Instagram reel that despite having a lot of talent, an incoming college teammate outplayed him and took his starting role, leaving him just short of an NFL roster spot.
“The roster in NFL, it’s a 53-man roster. I always say I was number 54. I was good. But just not good enough. So that put a chip on my shoulder. And not in any way making excuses. I didn’t make it because politics or because of this or that. No, I didn’t make it because that just was not in my cards. And a guy named Warren Sapp came in and just blew the world away with his playing, and that meant moving me to the bench. Hack and gash. That’s an inside joke; he’ll get it.
“Even though I didn’t make it to the NFL, two things. Number one, making it to the NFL was the best thing that never happened for me. Because it set me down a road and a path with a chip on my shoulder, and it’s right there. It will never go away. But it also created this hunger in me that never went away. And the other part about football that I really love and appreciate was the work ethic that it taught me.”
Johnson played as a defensive tackle for the University of Miami between 1990 and 1994. Although he won a national championship with the Hurricanes in 1991 and played in 39 games, he suffered a serious shoulder injury, which meant that future Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp took his starting spot.
In 1995, Johnson went undrafted and signed with the Calgary Stampeders in the CFL. He earned around $300 a week on the practice squad but was cut after only two months. He returned home to Tampa with only $7 in his pocket and struggled with severe depression.
However, Johnson used this as motivation to move into professional wrestling. He debuted in WWE in 1996 and became “The Rock” by 1997. By the age of 28, he had won multiple world championships, which gave him the money he had been looking for in football. He was able to buy his parents their first-ever house with no debt. While that breakthrough arrived later in life, he noted that football had originally been his main goal and ticket out.