When Tyler Doty was a little kid he dreamed about putting on an NFL jersey with his name on the back. He wanted to play in the National Football League and live his dream.
Doty accomplished the first part of that dream but is still waiting on the second part. He had to say he was in an NFL locker room and wearing an NFL jersey with his name on the back.
The Gasport native spent last weekend at the Seattle Seahawks rookie minicamp.
“I felt like I had a pretty solid weekend there,” Doty said. “I feel like I showcased all I could and really just put it all out there. The feedback from my agent, he said that I did a solid job.”
After the NFL Draft concluded April 25, Doty was invited to both the Seahawks rookie minicamp and the Kansas City Chiefs rookie minicamp. Due to both camps being during the same weekend, Doty had to make a decision.
The St. Joe’s alum went to the Seahawks camp because he and his agent, Sean Stellato, decided the offensive lineman had a better chance to make the reigning Super Bowl champions.
During the Seahawks camp, Doty was one of 11 offensive lineman who participated.
“I think I showed that I’m not just a strong player,” Doty said. “I can move as well, and also learn playbooks. As I’ve had to do multiple times in my college career. I felt like I learned the playbook pretty decently.”
While he has studied playbooks his entire life, this one was different. It presented a new challenge that he has never faced before. He had to figure out multiple plays that all mean the same thing but only one or two words of the call were different between each one.
Doty arrived in Seattle after playing six years at the University at Buffalo where he played right guard becoming an All-MAC selection and an All-MAC Academic Selection. Doty was one of four UB players who were invited to an NFL team’s rookie minicamp.
Now that he was at an NFL team’s practice facility trying to fight for a job, Doty felt pressure to perform.
But it was not pressure he had ever felt before. It was pressure the 25-year-old was comfortable with.
“I wouldn’t say I had bad pressure,” Doty said. “I’d say it was good pressure in the sense that I knew what was on the line and I mean that’s been my entire football career. There’s always something at stake so I didn’t feel like there’s any pressure that is unneeded or unwanted, just good pressure to push me to be as good as I can.”
Now, Doty is staying ready and staying by the phone hoping to continue his football career with whatever team wants him. In the meantime, Doty is taking what he learned at the Seahawks camp and trying to implement that into his game. He will be working on his footwork and his steps.
But, if the phone call does not come, Doty is satisfied with his career. It would be hard to no longer play the game he’s played since he was a little kid but he knows that he gave it all he has.
“I’m just going to be staying ready and wait to see if I hear anything,” Doty said. “If it does I’ll be really happy and if it doesn’t, … I know that I gave it my all and I had a very long career and played a lot of snaps of college football. I wouldn’t change a single thing that I’ve done in the last six years in college and really the last probably 20 years of life in football.”