Dae'Quan Wright spent this preseason bouncing between two NFL rosters. He signed with the Eagles as an undrafted free agent after the 2026 draft, got claimed off waivers by the Browns on August 11, then got waived by Cleveland on August 23 without appearing in a single preseason game. Instead of chasing another NFL camp, the 22-year-old tight end is reportedly headed back to college football at LSU, a move Adam Schefter first flagged as Wright being on the verge of becoming the first player with an NFL deal to return to the college game.
"They're either going to play for you or they're going to play somewhere else around the country, so we've made the decision to recruit them.” Lane Kiffin on LSU recruiting former NFL TE Dae'Quan Wright 👀 (via @LSUsports)
It's not the first time Wright and Lane Kiffin have crossed paths. Wright caught 39 passes for 635 yards and 5 touchdowns at Ole Miss last season playing for Kiffin, who's now running it back at LSU. Kiffin's blunt defense of the recruitment, as heard in the quote above, is basically: these guys are walking around unemployed with eligibility left, and somebody's going to take them.
Wright wasn't even the first ex-NFL player LSU scooped up that week. Zxavian Harris, a defensive tackle who helped Ole Miss to a 13-win, College Football Playoff season in 2025 before signing with the Saints as an undrafted free agent, also committed to Baton Rouge after New Orleans moved on from him. Harris had been recovering from foot surgery and never got on the field in a Saints uniform. Both players are reportedly using a Louisiana court ruling that grants Class of 2022 signees a temporary restraining order for a fifth year of eligibility to make the jump legal.
"Once you go to the NFL, to me, you're in the NFL. You don't get the opportunity to come back." Dan Lanning chimes in on NFL players returning to college football and says it's "unfair to the sport". Thoughts? (via Oregon Athletics/YT)
Not everyone in the coaching fraternity is thrilled about the loophole. Dan Lanning's stance is pretty simple: once you're in the NFL, you're in the NFL, and letting guys cycle back through college undercuts the players who never left. Ryan Day weighed in with his own read on the situation too, adding another marquee voice to a debate that's suddenly a lot bigger than one tight end from Ole Miss.
Lane Kiffin says he doesn't know Browns HC Todd Monken, doesn't have his number, and never reached out to him about TE Dae'Quan Wright 👀 (via @LSUsports)
Kiffin, for his part, isn't hiding from any of it. He went out of his way to note he never even reached out to Browns coach Todd Monken about Wright's situation, framing the whole thing as a straightforward recruiting decision rather than some backroom deal with an NFL franchise. Whether that quiets the critics or not, LSU isn't waiting around for a rulebook to catch up.
LSU has now landed commitments from TWO former NFL players in the span of 48 hours🐯 DL Zxavian Harris: New Orleans Saints TE Dae’Quan Wright: Cleveland Browns The Tigers kick off their season in 12 days against Clemson
LSU opens its season against Clemson on September 5, and if either Wright or Harris is in the building for that one, it'll be the loudest possible statement that this loophole is real and other programs are going to start chasing it too.