I had a neighbor back in the 80s who played for the Rams for one year in the early 60s. He was a good college player, got his degree but didn't think much of going into the NFL. He was just going to pass on the opportunity, reason being his father ran a couple of big car dealerships in LA. He could make more money selling cars or managing sales team than he could in NFL. Said his brother and father talked him into giving it a shot because the AFL had just started and many roster spots were open. He spent the year mostly as a backup on the Rams team and then quit, the allure of car money was too good he said. He told me all about the NFL experience back when guys were so underpaid they got second off-season jobs. They needed training camp to get into shape because they got out of shape during the off-season. There were no minicamps, no one got together to perfect their skills, playbooks were simple, etc. And everyone got good at the college level because they had freshman and JV teams who competed hard against other schools to get coveted varsity team spots, so the senior players were getting a ton of experience against good competition which wasn't that far below the pros. He said no one cared if you shined in practice, you had to do good things on the playing field to get noticed by the higher up teams. He said when he got to the NFL while the guys were better, but they weren't at another level it was more like going from varsity to a super varsity team. So much has changed since then, can't really compare the game today in the college to the pros.