BIOGRAPHY
George Fant was born July 19, 1992, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He is an offensive tackle for the New York Jets in the NFL. Throughout his first four years at Western Kentucky, friends and coaches urged Fant to join the Hilltoppers football team but he refused. He received letters from multiple NFL teams in spring 2015 asking if he were interested in giving professional football a chance but disregarded the letters and threw them away. Fant decided to transition to football after weighing his options of either playing basketball overseas in Poland or attempting a football career. With a wife and child to care for, he chose to play football. Western Kentucky tight ends Tyler Higbee and Devin Scott helped him learn the tight end position and tight ends coach Ryan Wallace also worked with him. He bulked up from 250 lbs to 296 lbs for football. Fant also said that he studied many tapes of another basketball-to-football convert, tight end Jimmy Graham.
Fant signed with the Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent on May 6, 2016. In the second game of the 2017 preseason, Fant tore his ACL and was ruled out for the season. He was placed on injured reserve on September 2, 2017. After rookie tight end Will Dissly got injured in a Week 4 matchup with the Arizona Cardinals, Fant started to play an offensive tackle/tight end hybrid role. He would line up as a sixth offensive lineman, either on the line itself or outside, and declare himself an eligible receiver. Fant had great success in this new role and helped the 2018 Seahawks achieve the number one ranked rushing offense in the league. Fant continued to function as a hybrid lineman for the Seahawks in 2019. He also functioned as the primary backup offensive tackle, filling in for an injured Duane Brown during parts of the season. On December 2, 2019, in a Monday Night Football matchup against the Minnesota Vikings, Fant garnered attention for helping the Seahawks rush for a season-high 218 yards in a 37-30 win. He reported as an eligible receiver on 42 plays during the game and lined up at multiple positions along the line. On April 23, 2020, Fant signed a three-year, $30 million contract with the New York Jets.
