Report: La'el Collins won't sign if picked Day 3, would wait for 2016
La'el Collins latest plan is to refuse to sign a contract if he is drafted after the third round.
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The La'el Collins saga continues, and ESPN's Adam Schefter says Collins will take an entire year off and re-enter the 2016 NFL Draft should teams pass on him in the second and third rounds on Friday. (Update: Collins was not selected Friday.)
La'el Collins and his reps have decided if he's not selected tonight he will not sign a contract with a team and will renter draft next year
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 1, 2015
Teams are clearly concerned about drafting Collins because of this investigation, even though he is reportedly not a suspect in the murder case, and it has caused him to fall down draft boards.
Collins, once thought to be a potential Top 15 pick in this draft, was not selected in the first round on Thursday after he left the draft in Chicago to speak with police in Baton Rouge about the murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend. Collins tried to pull out of the draft at the last minute on Thursday and enter the Supplemental Draft instead, but had his request denied by the NFL.
If he follows through on this plan, it would be a rarity in the NFL Draft. The most notable example of a player being drafted and refusing a contract only to be drafted again the next year is Bo Jackson in 1986. Jackson was drafted by the Buccaneers in the first round and refused to sign a contract to play baseball instead. The Bucs forfeited his rights just before the 1987 Draft when the Raiders took him in the seventh round and convinced him to sign.
