Tom Brady's agent, Don Yee, and former NFL wideout Ed McCaffrey have founded a new professional football league for players who have graduated high school but aren't yet in college and are not NFL-eligible.
It's called the Pacific Pro League, and it plans to hire players this winter for games that will occur in the summer of 2018. It will be a four-team league, with 50 players per team, based in Southern California that projects it will pay players an average salary of $50,000 for eight games. Players will also receive paid tuition and books at local community colleges, according to a statement sent out by the league.
"We're hoping to do a good job developing players for pro football," Yee told Patrick Hruby of Vice Sports, "as well as helping them find a path for life outside of football."
The idea is to give football players that have graduated high school -- but haven't been out of high school for three years -- an opportunity to train professionally.
"In every other sport you can think of, even global sports, young and emerging talent is about to be professional directly from high school or even younger," Yee told Vice. "The only outlier is football. I felt it should no longer be an outlier."
The Pacific Pro League's advisory board includes former NFL coach Mike Shanahan, former NFL official and current analyst for FOX Mike Pereira and ESPN reporter Adam Schefter.