All here praying and wishing Big Dez the best. His long term health, way more important than NFL money for maybe a year or two. At UF, pretty much EVERYONE liked Big Dez. His ability to be endearing enabled him to cut corners and made others enable him.
Well..probably just me but, they are not his peers. He is not a member of the team. His situation has been front and center for him since he played in high school at 380 and showed here at over 450. He has no excuse. He received guidance at the highest level. He disregarded it completely. Even the actor who played the extremely fat football player in REMEMBER THE TITANS lost half his weight. ( ETHAN SUPLEE..lost 250 pounds). Desire comes from within.
Dez is his own worst enemy here. He knew where he needed to be and didn’t care enough to take advantage. I doubt he ever takes the field not even on the practice squad.
If he didnt get in shape here in three years where he was loved, why would he do it now. I really wish the light would come on for him.
It doesn't cost them much and there is upside. If Dez got to 360-380 , he may be a big problem. The kid has quickness and is strong as hell.
Food disorders are the worst, whether you are cramming your face or starving yourself. In his case, it’s a sad place to be where you abuse something that you need to live. There is some serious trauma there and I hope he is able to deal with it before it’s too late.
I have absolutely no insight in his situation, but it seems to me there can be several things in play. The first (and maybe the biggest for most guys) is their age, meaning where they are in their emotional maturity. I postulate that Cam Newton would not have been the same at UF as he was at Auburn because he "got religion" through his journey. Another may be he had enough time to "do things" at UF and since he had options, he took advantage of them because he could. Temptation manifests when the cost is much less (in your mind's eye) than the benefit (the addiction hit). But for TB, once you are faced with making real money (yeah, the NIL era makes this sort of irrelevant) and the threat of taking it all away, maybe you can "get religion" and use up your free time with maintaining your religiosity. Obviously, they think a motivated Dez is worth the effort to preach to him. I say good luck to both parties. Unfortunately, methinks he doesn't have the necessary personal support structure to overcome his likely limited insight to the real world outside his upbringing. Vernell Brown Jr is assisting AR15 to overcome his limitations (ie, financial) whereas Dez needs something different. And all of this supposes it is a "defect" in his wiring. If eating is a way of overcoming something traumatic, well that is a whole different animal.
That isn’t the point. The point for a pro team is that sometimes they take a flier on extreme long shots. Nothing to lose. So they gave a local boy a chance with no risk. Will he take advantage Of the opportunity? So far no.
