This article appeared in the September 24-October 1, 2018 issue of Sports Illustrated. For more great stories and in-depth analysis, subscribe to the magazine and save up to 94% off the regular price. Click here to learn more.
Standing in the middle of the demolished first floor, the smell of fresh paint seeping in from the second floor and the roar of a power sander a few feet away, Brandon Copeland opens his laptop. “Here's the plans for the kitchen,” says the Jets' 6-foot-3, 263-pound outside linebacker. He taps the screen, bringing up a document with a handwritten note across the top: “Eagles Offense.” “Oh, that's my playbook,” he says. “Here's the plan.” The next tab contains precise, hand-drawn drawings of the fixtures, dimensions and cabinetry that Copeland sketched out this summer in the training room in Florham Park, New Jersey.
Less than 12 hours after the Jets' 10-9 loss to the Eagles in an August preseason game, Copeland was inspecting bathroom tile and drawing diagrams of the basement electrical wiring at a renovation site in Ellicott City, Md. Copeland, 27, bought the home for $384,000 in June 2017, about a year after buying his first investment property in Detroit when his NFL future was in doubt.
Simon Bultie
Undrafted out of the University of Pennsylvania in 2013, Copeland is a Wharton Business School graduate who spent time on the Ravens and Titans practice squads before missing a season. After not having any luck in the NFL, he was set to play for the Arena Football League's Orlando Predators in 2015, but was invited at the last minute to the NFL Veteran Combine in Arizona, where his 4.52-second 40-yard dash caught the Lions' eye. He played two seasons with Detroit, but missed the 2017 season with a torn pectoral muscle. Copeland was picked up by the Jets in mid-March and now flips houses while wearing a Gang Green uniform. This is the first time he's had a blueprint and a game plan at the same time. “I never want to depend on one thing,” he says.
Copeland would rather call himself an “entrepreneurship major” than a “football player.” He even landed an analyst job on Wall Street last spring. His time on IR in Detroit helped him further his interest in business. One of his teammates suggested he try real estate. His first home flip was through a partnership with his mentor, former Lions guard Rob Sims. Then in June 2017, Copeland bought his first home: a three-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom property in Detroit for $102,000, and within months, he was under contract on two more properties. The renovations, and Copeland's education, began. How much would a painter cost? What color would make the space look bigger? How much would the drywall cost? “I'm a diving guy,” he says.
“I'm Joanna,” he says, referring to Joanna Gaines, his co-star on the hit HGTV show “Fixer Upper.” “I've spent a lot of time talking to people and designing things and figuring out what to do when things go wrong. It's fun to see that and build it, and it's fun to know there's life outside of the NFL.”
Simon Bultie
Copeland says he flipped five homes in the Detroit and Baltimore areas in a year and made six figures. He's the lead designer and foots most of the bill, but many others contribute to the business: His mother, Angela, and several former teammates invested in the project in exchange for a cut of the profits; his wife, Taylor, works in finance and strategy at Google and keeps meticulous records of spending and calculates return on investment; and his brother, Chad, who is overseeing construction of the Ellicott City home, is a budding project manager.
Sims, who started Locker Room Consulting with former NFL players Calvin Johnson and Jason Strayhorn to help professional athletes transition into retirement, sees Copeland as a success story. “It's tough when people are paying you millions of dollars and they don't expect you to give it your all to football,” says Sims, 34. “But at the same time, if you're giving your body away, you've got to get something out of it at the end for yourself and for your sanity. It's important to work for the next 30 years of income.”
During the season, Copeland will remotely monitor his Ellicott City home while managing a renovation budget of about $115,000. He hopes to sell the house for $650,000 and split the profit of about $150,000 among his four investors. “A lot of people say Plan B gets in the way of Plan A,” Copeland says. “But the key is to compartmentalize. We need to make the most of this platform while we have it.”