The Jets drafted one of the best stories of the 2024 NFL Draft in the fifth round Saturday.
The team selected cornerback Qwan’Tez Stiggers with pick No. 176, the last of three fifth-round picks they made.
Stiggers did not play college football. He comes to the NFL after one season in the Canadian Football League with the Toronto Argonauts and four years after he walked away from football.
Stiggers is the third player taken in the common draft era who did not attend college.
He is the first player drafted from the CFL without attending college.
After graduating from B.E.S.T. Academy in Atlanta, Stiggers planned on playing at Lane College in Tennessee.
COVID hit in 2020 and canceled the season.
Then, in September 2020, his father, Rayves Harrison, died after being in a coma for seven months following a car accident.
Stiggers decided to stop playing football.
“When I decided to put a pause on football, it was to focus on my mental health,” Stiggers said. “I feel like mental health was part of my journey of how I got here. It’s just believing in those who believe in you.”
He worked several jobs before his mother, Kwanna Stiggers, saw something about a 7-on-7 semi-pro league called Fan Controlled Football.
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Qwan’Tez was convinced to try it and that led to a season with the Argonauts in the CFL.
He had five interceptions and was named Most Outstanding Rookie.
“I was just looking for an opportunity,” Stiggers said. “It ended up being more than an opportunity. It ended up being a life-changing year for me where I could chase my dreams to go to the NFL.”
His CFL season put him on the NFL radar and he participated in the East-West Game and then teams began to look at him seriously.
The Jets were one of those teams.
He visited them and clicked with cornerbacks coach Tony Oden, who recently sent him a photo mock up of him getting drafted by the Jets.
“It was almost surreal for me,” Stiggers said of getting drafted. “I came up to the Jets on a top-30 visit. Me and coach [Oden] built a great relationship. Now it just feels like home, honestly. I may have not gone in the round I wanted to go in but, at the end of the day, I love that the Jets selected me. I’m going to make ‘em pay. They’re going to have to pay all year.”