At least two players selected in the first round of the 2025 NFL draft are from family farms.
The Chicago Bears, for example, picked tight end Colston Loveland from Michigan with the 10th overall pick.
But he grew up on his family’s farm in Gooding County, Idaho.
This county, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, had 499 farms, encompassing 212,600 acres.
Growing up, farm work came before football.
“Colston used to get up at 6 a.m. to brand cows, take a mid-day nap and then go play a football game at night,” Courtney Cronin, an ESPN reporter who covers the Chicago Bears, said on X on April 24, citing a conversation with Colston’s father, Chad.