I like to listen to ESPN radio during my commute. Just the other day, I listened to a conversation about two NFL players with the exact same name. Apparently, during the 2023 NFL Draft, the Las Vegas Raiders selected Alabama defensive tackle Bryant Young with the 70th overall pick in the draft. Young would finish the 2023 season with just four tackles (he only played six games) and was later waived by the Raiders. He is currently playing for the Philadelphia Eagles practice squad (i.e. he is not on any NFL active roster). His pick - at least at this point in the draft - surprised a lot of the experts.
The Los Angeles Rams selected another Bryant Young - this one from the University of Tennessee - with the 77th pick in the same 2023 draft. The Bryant Young for the Rams is a linebacker and had an outstanding rookie season. More importantly, he is still playing meaningful snaps for the Rams during this year's playoffs (he had 33 tackles and 7.5 quarterback sacks during the regular season).
The conversation I heard questioned whether the Raiders made a mistake and selected the wrong Bryant Young. They say hindsight is 20/20, and the current body of work strongly says that the Raiders would have been better off picking the other Bryant Young. But in this particular case, the talk show radio hosts were suggesting that the Raiders actually screwed up the names and meant to pick the Bryant Young from Tennessee all along! I can't imagine that is true. There's no proof that it really happened that way. However, if hospitals spend so much time focusing on making sure that they have the right patient (see the report "Patient Identification Errors" which was released by the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research), perhaps NFL teams should follow suit? Just a thought...
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