The NFL draft came and went and Stanfield native and Boise State standout quarterback Jared Zabransky, who seemed like a lock to be picked, never got the call he was expecting.

The call that would have started his NFL career, the call he was expecting as early as the third round and was certain would come no later than early Sunday.

But even though he never got the call that would have made him a draft pick, he undoubtedly fielded many in the closing moments of the draft and the hours afterward as the feeding frenzy for undrafted free agents began.

Of those calls, Zabransky chose the Houston Texans as his team of the immediate future. The Texans were one of the teams he met privately with prior to the draft.

Each year, teams bring up to a dozen UDFAs to their camps, mostly just to serve as warm bodies and fill out scrimmage rosters.

Invariably though, a few of these signings show a spark that the team may not have seen prior to the draft and end up making the team, either on the regular 53-man roster or the eight-man practice squad.

Zabransky will try to be one of those players.

His road will be tougher because teams are usually more reluctant to give up on a guy they invested a draft pick in.

It can be done though.

The guy most draftniks have compared Zabransky to, journeyman quarterback Jeff Garcia, has had a successful nine-season career in the NFL after going undrafted out of San Jose State. After starting out in the Canadian Football League, he went on to play in three Pro Bowls and take his teams to the playoffs three times (twice with the 49ers and once with the Eagles).

The most recent undrafted signal caller to find success in the NFL is the Cowboys’ Tony Romo (from Eastern Illinois University), who took the Cowboys to the playoffs last season and made the Pro Bowl after starting just 10 games.

Even if Zabransky does end up on the practice squad his first few years, it is still a pretty sweet deal.

Players on the squad are paid in the ballpark of $5,000 a week.