Late on the morning of April 2, Jude Adjei-Barimah exclaimed his excitement on Twitter.
The former Bowling Green cornerback had been cleared to return to practice for the San Diego Fleet of the start-up Alliance of American Football league.
To that point, Adjei-Barimah’s pro career was one of unrequited love. He made it as an undrafted rookie starter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2015, only to break his kneecap in 2017. The Fleet extended a lifeline, and that snapped too, along with his wrist in the first game of the season. “This must be a sign,” he thought.
But Adjei-Barimah — the son of Ghanaian immigrants who moved from Italy to Ohio when he was 9 — had come too far to move on from his American football dream just yet.
“It’s a glorious day,” he tweeted at 11:53 a.m.
Then came high noon.
Across the eight-team league, the news spread.
Adjei-Barimah saw it on Twitter. Izaah Burks, a former Falcons teammate and defensive lineman for the Orlando Apollos, heard it in the locker room as he dressed for practice. Ex-Toledo offensive tackle Brant Weiss got it in an email.
The AAF was shutting down.
With two games still to play in the inaugural season, it was over, effective immediately.
“Unreal,” Adjei-Barimah tweeted at 1:15 p.m.
From there, everyone had their jokes, and understandably so.
Another spring football league with dysfunctional ownership and mounds of debt that had less staying power than a Kardashian marriage? You don’t say.
But beyond the one-liners — “They were funny ... at first,” Burks said — there were hundreds of two-timed players, coaches, and staffers suddenly out of work.
Some landed more softly than others. Former Toledo stars Jayrone Elliott — a linebacker for the San Antonio Commanders who led the league with 7½ sacks — and quarterback Logan Woodside have since landed NFL deals, with the Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans, respectively. So did Central Catholic grad Keith Towbridge. The tight end also signed with the Titans.
For many more, meanwhile, no raft awaited. Only uncertainty.
I caught up with those in the latter group to help put a face on a fly-by-night detour as disappointing as it was bizarre.
“Everybody just grabbed their personal belongings and got out of Dodge,” Burks said of the tearful closing day. “It hurt, and it really hit me when I saw the faces of the football operations people, the trainers, all the people who moved here and weren’t playing ball.”
He was more bummed than bitter, which proved a more common outlook than I expected.
If you’re waiting for the kind of horror stories that went viral on social media — players in Memphis reportedly returned to their rooms at an extended stay hotel to find their belongings waiting in the lobby — you came to the wrong place. The former Toledo and BG players — who earned a prorated share of $75,000 for their troubles this season — all told me they were grateful for the experience.
The biggest reason for the letdown: “It was so much fun,” said Weiss, a member of the Arizona Hotshots.
No, it was not the NFL. And, yes, the players had their eyes opened. When the owner of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes invested $250 million in the AAF after the first week of games so it could make payroll, and as the league continued to pour money into its fancy gambling app, they saw the red flags.
“Instead of trying to be the innovators of football,” Adjei-Barimah said, “how about we just try to run a league that’s self-sufficient?”
Still, it was an opportunity just the same, for everyone from high-wattage castoffs like Johnny Manziel and Trent Richardson to the rank-and-file dreamers to continue playing a kids game.
“I’m going to look back and smile on this year,” Weiss said. “I made some of the best friends of my life, and we put quality football on the field. I wouldn’t have had that opportunity if the league hadn’t existed at all.”
Said Burks: “This showed me that I’ve got a lot of football left in me. Now, it’s back to the drawing board.”
Weiss and Burks hope to be invited to an NFL training camp, same as Adjei-Barimah, who is no stranger to long odds.
Raised on soccer, he fell hard for the football of his new country upon settling in Columbus. He became an all-league contributor by his senior year at Northland High School and a starter by his senior year at Bowling Green, then willed himself from a spot on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ practice squad to a spot on their roster to a spot in their lineup.
As Adjei-Barimah sees it, what is one more twisting chapter in his great American tale?
“You’ve got two ways to look at it,” he said. “I can say, ‘Man, I’m cursed.’ Or, ‘Damn, I’m blessed to have another opportunity to rewrite a part of my story and push through this adversity.’ Things fall apart right before they build back even stronger.”
First Published April 12, 2019, 1:49 p.m.
