Drake London woke up on Thursday morning with a flurry of text messages on his cellphone. Typically for a potential first-round pick waking up on the first day of the NFL Draft, these texts would be from friends and family wishing him luck and sending their best wishes.
Instead, it was about a $100 thousand wager placed on him becoming the first receiver taken in the draft by the rapper Drake. "Drake betting on Drake just feels right," the rapper wrote on his Instagram story as he placed the bet.
"My friends were hitting my phone saying Champagne Papi bet on me, so I thought that was funny," London told Atlantafalcons.com, referring to Drake by his Instagram username.
Drake bet wisely, as London was the first receiver off the board when the Falcons selected him as the number eight overall pick.The Falcons and London were almost destiny if you ask him.
It starts way back in his high school, Moorpark in California.
Similar to him and the rapper Drake, London's high school Moorpark shares the name as the college that legendary running back Jamal Anderson attended. Anderson was London's introduction to the Falcons. He did not get many Falcons games on the west coast, but he remembers how Anderson made the Dirty Bird dance famous.
So when London saw the Georgia area code on his phone, he was both relieved and excited.
"My heart was racing like crazy," London said. "Especially when the phone started ringing and it had a little 'GA' behind it. I was happy."
London was relieved and happy to be drafted by the Falcons because he had envisioned himself in Atlanta. He is excited about the direction that coach Arthur Smith and Terry Fontenot are taking the team, and he has already created a nickname for him and Kyle Pitts: the twin towers. A fitting name because of their height and contested catch ability.
"I just felt like I wanted to be in Atlanta at the end of the day," London said. This is where I wanted to end up. … We're moving in the right direction, and I can't wait to go out there and put on that jersey and just be a dirty bird at the end of the day."
Smith enjoys having big, physical wide receivers who earn yards after the catch in his offense and there was no better player to fit that mold than London. He and Pitts will put fear in defenses, especially in the red zone, and London is excited to show what he can do.
"I'm just fearless," London said. "Put the ball anywhere. I'm gonna go get it."
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