Eagles

Grant Calcaterra Confirms this is Not a Danny Watkins Redux

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: May 6th, 2022 · 1:29 PM EDT

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When the Eagles drafted SMU/Oklahoma tight end Grant Calcaterra in the 6th round of the draft, scribes pointed out that he had retired from football a few years ago to become a firefighter. That immediately triggered post traumatic Danny Watkins stress disorder, triggering everybody who remembers when the former first round pick swapped out football for something admittedly much more meaningful.

The Calcaterra story floated around out there, somewhat loosely, but he confirmed officially Friday what actually happened:

Calcaterra clarifies that he trained and was hired as an EMT, but never actually worked as one — made the decision to go back to football the day before he was supposed to start work. pic.twitter.com/HmvzrT094o

— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) May 6, 2022

So the full story is that he was with the Sooners from 2017 to 2019 and missed significant time due to concussions. He decided to retire from playing and pursue his EMT certification, but ultimately unretired from football, enrolled at SMU, and found his way to the NFL.

He was never a firefighter, so no Danny Watkins redux here. He was training to be a first responder, so if you wanna make the link there, sure, but in this case he diverted from that path back to football while Watkins, who was in his mid twenties at the time, never went back to pigskin. Calcaterra is 23 years old.

Anyway, glad we got that cleared up.

More on all of it here:

Grant Calcaterra was all set to take the next step in his post-football life. But one day before starting a job as an EMT, the ex-Oklahoma star decided to go all-in on a football comeback.

Here's more on his comeback and his impressive offseason at SMU: https://t.co/fOfdFZNocd

— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) August 30, 2021