Browns safety Jordan Poyer described himself as an underdog. His journey to the professional sports career began at a young age.
“My first word was ball,” Poyer told NewsChannel5’s Lauren Brill. “It was really all my family ever did was play sports.
Poyer’s biological father didn’t have a much of a role in his life growing up. While his mother was playing volleyball at Eastern New Mexico University, Jordan was a toddler. That’s when he and his mom met the man Jordan calls dad.
“The story was he fell in love with me before he fell in love with my mom,” Poyer explained. “I called him dad growing up and that is who I consider my pops.”
In high school Poyer excelled at football, basketball and baseball, and was recognized as state player of the year in football and baseball and conference player of the year in basketball. However, many considered baseball to be his best sport. Despite only a handful of offers to play football, Poyer chose Oregon State where he had the opportunity to play both football and baseball. Ultimately he chose to focus solely on football.
“I had an interception for a touchdown my sophomore year against USC. It was on ESPN. It was the second quarter. It was crazy,” he recalled. “I think it was that moment right there, that feeling right there was like ‘damn I can’t pass this feeling up.' So the following year I decided not to play baseball anymore."
Poyer was a consensus all-American at Oregon State. In 2013 the Philadelphia Eagles drafted him in the seventh round before waiving. The Browns picked him. Now he is a starter.
“I have always been the overlooked one,” he said. “I just keep my head down and I keep working and everything in the end takes care of itself.”
Now as a key player in the defensive unit for the Browns, Poyer once again has something to prove. With the mentality of an underdog, he plans to dig deep so he can help give the Dawg Pound a reason to bark really loud.
Poyer explained, “ I want to win. Cleveland wants to win. Our team wants to win and we want to win. So whatever it takes to win we want to do.”
