Wait, what? $915M? If you see this particular post by Alabama football, there’s a good chance that you’ll raise your eyebrows and squint to look harder. 

According to On3’s NIL rankings, Alabama’s signal-caller Jalen Milroe is now the third highest ranked with an NIL valuation of $2.7M, surpassing Colorado’s Travis Hunter after his deal with Six Star Pro Nutrition. With Milroe’s rise in the NIL rankings under Kalen DeBoer, it’s not much of a surprise regarding the confusion. Still, there’s too big a difference for it to be a realistic instance. 

On August 8, alabamafbl uploaded a post on Instagram featuring the Crimson Tide players with a big “$915M” below. Under it are the words, “Former Alabama players have signed $915M in off-season NFL contracts this year.” But before the readers could read the second part of the message, the big “$915M” got most of them good with them assuming it’s NIL money. One fan wrote, “Thought this was NIL first I was bout to say” followed by a laughing emoji. 

Nick Saban’s 17 years in Alabama paved the way for several college football players to transition to the NFL. During his tenure, he produced 133 NFL draft picks out of which 47 are first-round picks. This off-season, 10 Alabama players joined the NFL as per 247Sports. As is mentioned in the post, the combined contract crossed the $900M mark, which showcases Saban’s unrivaled performance in Tuscaloosa. However, we can’t help but feel for those fans who thought new HC Kalen DeBoer overdid himself in the NIL realm this offseason. 

Fans get fooled by Alabama’s catchy numbers

When the fan above posted the message, more people dropped similar responses below the comment with one person saying, “Same dude,” also followed by a laughing emoji. 

Another person on the same line also joined in the comment. They wrote, “Same bro I hate to relook like 15 times.” Until the small letters become visible, it’s not difficult to fool anyone into believing it could be NIL money. 

The last commenter in the reply spoke the minds of the majority of the people who were initially misled. They commented, “I was like when the heck did Alabama have 915 million dollars of NIL?” That’s a far-fetched target for even one of the top-tier programs. 

However, Alabama is embracing NIL under Kalen DeBoer, who said, “I think the key is to have a sustainable model that allows the student-athletes to get NIL or some version of that or whatever it may be. Definitely am in favor of that. I think there is an opponent that they should be able to take advantage of.” DeBoer is only starting as Saban’s replacement, but he’s already making a promising start. We’ll soon be able to see if he can emulate his success in both NIL and developing players for the NFL.