Will The NIL Landscape Make More Tate Martells?
Tate Martell finally retired from football this year. You may be wondering "Who cares about Tate Martell?" Well for some reason my brain always followed Tate as I followed other QBs growing up. Tate always stuck with me because we were in the same recruiting class in HS. Tate had a huge platform and had national exposure as a senior during the QB1 series by Peter Berg. The show was entertaining and had many invest in Tate Martell's story. Unfortunately, his career did not pan out how he and many thought it would. His time at Ohio State was highlighted by his 10-10 passing performance against Rutgers.
Tate's time at Ohio State came with an overlap with Joe Burrow, Joe transferred and found success at LSU. Tate decided to transfer due to competition after a (kinda) similar situation to Burrow but had a less favorable outcome, ending up at UMiami where he dabbled at receiver and then proceeded to quit the team after a skeptical suspension which put him out of the first game. He then once again lost a Quarterback battle to D'eriq King. Tate had several leave of absences from the team. It's obvious that his inability to see the field was having serious impacts on his psyche. Tate Martell had swung and missed twice, something he had one famously tweeted at Justin Fields before Fields ultimately pushed Tate to transfer.
"After being there for two years and not playing, I couldn't risk it anymore. There's a point where you love your teammates, you love everything about the school and the people there, but you have to start thinking about yourself and not doing it because these are my teammates. They all understood, and they weren't upset at all. The good thing that happened was that I was told, so I wasn't in a bad situation. So that's the only thing I can say that was good about the situation is I wasn't lied to."
Tate Martell in his own words struck out by his own standards. In my opinion, I think he is the first of many young guys in this new social media world who gained exposure early on and didn't pan out. ("Billy Football" didn't exactly pan out in college). The psychological impact of being a cocky 17-year old that is ultimately humbled by public exposure and shortcomings causes huge perspective change. When being good at football is the foundation of your confidence the realization of not being #1 can cause some serious questioning of everything you know. Not winning a starting job and having to transfer is a huge blow to the ego, something that makes Joe Burrow's story even more impressive. Getting hit with the idea that you are not good enough can put the biggest narcissists into a spiral, what was the difference between Joe and Tate that caused such different outcomes? If Joe didn't work out at LSU he was already planning on backups, he used his time at Ohio to secure an internship at Goldman Sachs, the closest job to getting an NFL salary without being a professional athlete. That internship may have fueled Joe to try even harder given all the investment banking horror stories I've heard.
Is there truth that maybe a lot of these guys who don't pan out had to do with situation and position, for Burrow that seemed the case. Was Tate's exposure from a young age the reason for his lack of success?
Tate's time in the spotlight at a young age being held against him by coaches might play, but individuals like Jake Fromm or Justin Fields who also were on the QB1 show got to the league. The question really came down to Tate may have been more in love with the spotlight than the game. Maybe he was too Hollywood and the coaches didn't vibe with him, one of his first non-football activities at Miami was dating one of Dan Bilzerian's model friends.
His family at one point only had contact with him through social media. No one could get through to him.
Not making excuses for the guy but the pressure from a young age may have cracked him. It may have been easier to work through the failures if he did not have to answer to the millions who knew of him not panning out. It's a high school version of Manziel, the pressure to be successful may lead to self-destructive tendencies dooming careers. While social media, NIL deals, and more content are being made off younger players, the off-putting factors that turned off many coaching staffs from guys like Tate or Manziel may become more and more commonplace. Spencer Rattler may also be an example of these guys who got crowned too early and hyped up. That pressure of not being as good as advertised may end up compounding on guys who end up snapping. High school guys like Quinn Ewers that already have millions and haven't even taken a snap in college might bring more and more stories like Tate Martell to the forefront. There's going to be more and more guys we are aware of who don't pan out. Maybe even more burning out quicker because of the pressure of being famous, and being paid. In this new NIL NCAA landscape maybe they can use the funds from their college days as well the social platform, that you could argue hurt guys like Tate and Manziel's career, to promising business ventures. At the end of this long Martell saga, hopefully, his business ventures do "blow up." We are going to see a ton of Tate Martells moving forward. You could just write off Tate as being spoiled, but I think we are going to see the behavior he displayed as being a lot more common among this NIL generation. We got to remember at some point these are kids and a lot of kids who don't even play sports end up getting into fucked up situations in college.
Tate was just the tip of the iceberg, many more guys are going to get platforms and implode.