Shavon Revel Jr. will probably watch the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft on Thursday night closely.

The 24-year-old cornerback from East Carolina University is one of the top-ranked players at his position, according to , which projects him as either first- or second-round pick in this year's draft. If that's the case, he's likely to receive a four-year rookie contract worth several million dollars, .

Getting drafted would mark the culmination of a long and uncertain journey: Four years ago, Revel was scanning packages and loading boxes onto trucks at an Amazon warehouse in the suburbs of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he told in February.

At the time, Revel was a student at Louisburg College — working a summer job with his father to make some extra cash, he said — while still holding out hope of landing a scholarship offer from a Division-I college football program. He didn't share how much he made that summer, but the average pay for customer fulfillment and operations roles at an Amazon facility is around $22 per hour, according to the .

Glassdoor's estimated pay for Amazon warehouse workers is slightly lower, , according to the workplace reviews website.

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Revel landed at Louisburg, a private two-year school in North Carolina, hoping to improve on his academic record: A combination of poor grades and a string of teenage injuries contributed to his lack of Division-I scholarship offers in high school, he on April 3.

When the Covid-19 pandemic cancelled his first Division-III season at Louisburg, Revel worried he'd run out of chances to chase his NFL dream. "There were a lot of points where I could've given up," Revel told The Athletic. "But I can't give up on the sport I love."

In the summer of 2021, Revel's father signed up his son for several college tryout camps, including one at ECU. After a 10-hour shift scanning and loading Amazon packages alongside his father, Revel was "tired as hell" as he drove two-and-a-half hours with his dad to the university's tryout, told ESPN.

There, the younger Revel impressed the college coaches with his elite speed and athleticism, running the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds and showcasing a 39-inch vertical leap. "When I saw him run his 40-yard dash, the coach pretty much chased him down," Revel Sr. told The Athletic. "I knew it was good news."

ECU's coaches offered Revel a scholarship, provided he kept improving his grades at Louisburg. "That's all I needed to hear," Revel told ESPN.

A stellar 2023 season at ECU put him on the radar of NFL scouts, with the Pro Football & Sports Network projecting Revel as a likely "early first-round" pick in the NFL Draft. He received interest from larger schools, but declined to transfer away from ECU — despite the promise of , he said.

"I would be like, 'Damn, that's a lot of money.' I was fighting with myself," said Revel. "But I kept going back to ECU believing in me in the first place. Those other schools offering me all that money weren't there when I needed somebody to give me a chance ... I was going to be true to myself. They weren't going to buy me."

Revel suffered a knee injury in the fall of 2024 that cut his final college season short, which could affect how early he's drafted this week. If he's selected in the middle of the draft's first round, he could earn a four-year deal worth a total of roughly $18.5 million, according to of rookie contract scales.

A player selected at the end of the second round can expect a four-year deal worth at least $6.8 million in total, according to Spotrac.

Revel expects to make a full recovery before the 2025 NFL season, his doctor told The Athletic.

"You've got to move past that," said Revel. "It took me two or three days to get over it, but I wasn't going to let it drag me down. I hadn't let anything drag me down my whole life and wasn't going to start then."

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