Farm kids drafted to the NFL

Colston Loveland and Grey Zabel grew up on family farms

Members of the U.S. ag community will be taking their talents and hard work from the farm to the gridiron this NFL season.

At least two players selected in the first round of the 2025 NFL draft are from family farms.

The Chicago Bears, for example, picked tight end Colston Loveland from Michigan with the 10^th overall pick.

But he grew up on his family’s farm in Gooding County, Idaho.

This county, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, had 499 farms, encompassing 212,600 acres.

Growing up, farm work came before football.

“Colston used to get up at 6 a.m. to brand cows, take a mid-day nap and then go play a football game at night,” Courtney Cronin, an ESPN reporter who covers the Chicago Bears, said on X on April 24, citing a conversation with Colston’s father, Chad.

In addition, Colston and his brother Cayden showed sheep in 4-H, which became competitive to them.

“You wanted to get that blue ribbon for best showman,” Colston told The Michigan Daily in October 2024. “And then there was the best sheep, like, who had the best looking sheep, and I think it was a red ribbon.”

Another new NFL player with ties to ag is Grey Zabel.

The Seattle Seahawks picked the offensive lineman with the 18^th overall selection out of North Dakota State.

But Zabel got his start on his family’s farm in Pierre, S.D.

Pierre is in Hughes County, which had 301 farms spread across 446,067 acres, the 2022 Census of Agriculture says.

Following his selection, Zabel drew on the similarities between football and farming.

“You plant seed in the dirt in the spring and tend to it and try to get it as much as you can to grow a great crop in the fall, and football is the same exact way,” Seahawks.com reported. “You work all offseason to get your body strong, healthy, and then you go reap the benefits in the fall. Those three things are kind of what describes me, and I hold them pretty close to my heart."

And Zabel recently rented some land to start his own farm.

Northland Farms is a 250-acre cash crop operation.

“Obviously football comes first but it’s awesome to kind of get away from football and get back on the farm and get back to hard work,” he said in a College Football on ESPN video. “I’m very blessed to have an awesome family around me that helps me out with that stuff.”

A farm town kid recently won the NFL’s top prize the Vince Lombardi trophy as part of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Cooper DeJean grew up in Odebolt, Iowa, in Sac County, where USDA numbers showed cows outnumbered humans by more than 37,000.