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We owe some of our fascination with professional sports to players with stories like Adam Shaheen, the tight end out of the Division II school Ashland University, who was drafted in the second round by the Chicago bears. Shaheen stated in pre-draft interviews that he bulked up for football by eating a lot of Chipotle burritos. To quote him directly, he ate: “A lot of Chipotle burritos. A lot of burritos. No, in all honesty it was a lot of burritos.”
You heard it here first folks, eating a lot of Chipotle burritos is an important step in becoming an NFL-caliber tight end (being 6’6” and weighing 278 lbs won’t hurt, either). Let us venture into why there should be an endorsement deal on the table for Shaheen from Chipotle.
Take another player who went in the second round of the 2017 draft, Forrest Lamp. Lamp played offensive line at Western Kentucky, was picked by the Los Angeles Chargers, and he had a great endorsement deal inked before the draft even started. The endorser in question? Lamps Plus. A round of applause is necessary for Lamp as this is, quite frankly, a legendary move.
It would be difficult to top that endorsement, but Chipotle has been presented with a great opportunity in Adam Shaheen. Shaheen has provided free publicity on a large stage for Chipotle during the buildup to the NFL draft. Let’s use an example from sports movie Happy Gilmore to further illustrate exactly why Chipotle needs to seriously consider endorsing Shaheen.
The movie serves pretty well as an analogy to Adam Shaheen’s story; during Happy Gilmore’s meteoric rise to fame from hockey player to professional golfer, he gets endorsed by Subway sandwiches. He then gets featured in an advertisement from the company where he drives a footlong sub off of a tee into a fan’s mouth. Oh, and Gilmore also receives free Subway for life with the endorsement.
Compare this to Shaheen: rather than moving from hockey to golf, he moved from basketball to football. He was recruited out of high school as a basketball player and was relatively too skinny to play football, so he decided to pivot from basketball to football and bulk up. As he boasts, bulking up was a breeze for him once he started devouring countless Chipotle burritos.
It would have to be tweaked a bit, but the Happy Gilmore Subway ad could be the inspiration for absolutely fantastic ads for Chipotle. Picture it: Adam Shaheen catches a burrito thrown by Mitchell Trubisky, then Shaheen takes off his helmet in the endzone and takes a big bite (or if they just copy the ad and have Shaheen catch it in his mouth, there would be no complaints here). The added bonus is that the ad would showcase the Bears’ first and second round picks! It writes itself.
On a final note, there are 19 Chipotle locations within a five mile radius of Soldier Field according to their website. Post-workout burritos aplenty could be in the future for Adam Shaheen in Chicago, if only Chipotle sees the light. Your move, Chipotle.