Seems like it worked out OK for him:
Who cares about the Super Bowl when it’s duck-hunting season?
That’s what “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson believes. He turned down a chance to play in the NFL to pursue his real passion: hunting. That later led to the formation of his business selling duck calls and other gear, which in turn led to his family being spotlighted on the A&E reality series.
Back in the late ’60s, Robertson was a quarterback at Louisiana Tech, starting ahead of a guy named Terry Bradshaw — who would later become a Hall of Famer with four Super Bowl rings.
As detailed in Sports Illustrated, Robertson turned down an offer from the Washington Redskins his junior year to concentrate on duck hunting.
“Throwing a touchdown pass to a guy running down the sideline, and he runs down with the ball for six, it was fun,” he reminisces. “However, in my case, it was much more fun to be standing down in some flooded timber with about 35 or 40 mallard ducks comin’ down on top of me in the woods. That did my heart more good than all the football in the world.”
Bradshaw recalls Robertson as someone who loved hunting more than football. In his autobiography, “It’s Only a Game,” the legendary quarterback wrote, “He’d come to practice directly from the woods, squirrel tails hanging out of his pockets, duck feathers on his clothes. Clearly he was a fine shot, so no one complained too much.”