Andrew DePaola was 27 years old and five seasons past his last game at Rutgers when he finally made his NFL regular-season debut with the Buccaneers back in 2014.
"I remember looking at my first paycheck," said the 35-year-old Vikings long snapper. "They paid us every two weeks during the season. It was $48,000. That day changed my life."
Twenty-four grand a week was a tad more than DePaola was making restocking shelves at Best Buy in East Brunswick, N.J. Or tending bar at DePaola's Pub in Arbutus, Md.
"I did a little bit of everything at the family restaurant, so I tried tending bar so I could make a little more in tips," DePaola said. "A guy comes in and orders scotch on the rocks. I pour like a full glass of scotch. My dad sees me and says, 'That's it. You're done. You're costing me too much money pouring drinks. Go downstairs and keep the books.'"
DePaola, the oldest and most overlooked guy in the Vikings locker room, laughs. He's just an average Joe who also happens to be making $1,035,000 — $115,000 every two weeks during the season — to "throw a football between my legs" while playing for a 9-2 team along with the likes of Justin Jefferson, the hottest name in the NFL, if not all of sports, right now.
It's staggering to think of how many unlikely twists and turns life took for DePaola to get to where he is.
- He walked on at Rutgers as an all-state quarterback from Herford High in Parkton, Md. A three-year starter and one-time state champion, DePaola got only one financial offer: a partial scholarship from West Virginia Wesleyan.
- He never played quarterback in a game for Rutgers. He was switched to receiver. "I never caught a pass," DePaola says, "but I am 1-for-1 on throwing passes for touchdowns."
- He threw that touchdown pass because he had gone to coach Greg Schiano and volunteered to be the holder on placekicks. The touchdown was a 15-yarder off a fake field goal in Rutgers' 30-27 upset of No. 2 South Florida in 2007.
- He also went to Schiano and volunteered to be the emergency long snapper. And, yes, Schiano made the odd decision to have his holder also be his emergency long-snapper.
Here's where DePaola's life story gets especially fateful.
"It's 2008 and we go to Tampa to play South Florida," DePaola said. "We're kicking a PAT right before halftime and a [defender] jumps through the gap, lands on our snapper Jeremy Branch's leg. Jeremy tears his ACL."
