The way Shane Simmons figures it, getting the call late is better than not getting it at all.<\/p>\n
That proved to be the case Sunday afternoon for Simmons, a 2004 Kentlake High graduate and Western Washington star who anticipated being selected in the later rounds of the NFL draft.<\/p>\n
Though Simmons\u2019 name never was announced during the two-day draft, he did, in fact, receive the call that counted. Roughly an hour after the draft ended on Sunday, Simmons, a linebacker, signed a free-agent contract with the Oakland Raiders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of figured I wouldn\u2019t be drafted after the fifth and sixth rounds because there were a lot of linebackers who were already taken,\u201d said Simmons, who also received offers from Detroit, Green Bay and San Francisco.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I needed was an opportunity, and that\u2019s what I got,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n
No Kentlake football player has ever made it to the NFL.<\/p>\n
In high school, Simmons, a 6-foot-1, 230-pounder, made a name for himself more as a quarterback than as a defensive stalwart. During his senior season at Kentlake, he combined for 1,694 yards rushing and passing and scored 19 touchdowns in leading the Falcons to the state playoffs.<\/p>\n
Simmons admitted that he wasn\u2019t Raider fan growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cHell no, to be quite honest,\u201d Simmons said with a laugh. \u201cBut I won\u2019t have any problems wearing the silver and black now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The way Shane Simmons figures it, getting the call late is better than not getting it at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9694"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}