I must admit that I find that whole “sit out the end of the season to protect your NFL career” thing to be both prudent and comical. It’s an inevitable consequence of combining big-money pro sports with the NCAA farce of “student athletes” who generate huge piles of revenue for Division I schools but aren’t allowed to be compensated accordingly.
I sometimes wonder how each sport has evolved, and how players are developed.
For example, baseball runs its own farm system. Top high school players often do not go to college, but instead, go right into the minor leagues of baseball, to develop and gain experience to make it to the major leagues someday. But in football and basketball, the top high school players go to college, and develop and gain experience in the college game, in the hopes of making it to the NFL or NBA someday.
I think hockey runs its own farm teams as well, don’t they?
I like to think of the NCAA as being semi pro football.