From DoorDash to the NFL: Dohnte Meyers says ‘Everything is perfectly and divinely placed by God’ 

One of the NFL’s best feel-good stories will reach another milestone Sunday, when a player who received no attention from NFL scouts out of Division II Delta State – and once delivered DoorDash while training during the day and chasing his football dream – takes the field in Cincinnati.

Dohnte Meyers’ path to the NFL is the stuff of Hollywood movies.

“God works in crazy ways,” Meyers told Bengals.com.

He played at Norcross High School (Georgia) but didn’t move to his current position, wide receiver, until his senior season. As a zero-star recruit (five is the top level), he wasn’t on the radar of big-name college programs and received no major scholarship offers.

Meyers landed at Presbyterian College in South Carolina and started during the 2018-19 seasons but then entered the transfer portal, not believing his dream of reaching the NFL was possible there. He found a new home at Division II Delta State – a full step below such schools as Ohio State – where he excelled and earned all-conference honors in 2022 but, unfortunately, went undrafted in 2023 and failed to make an NFL roster.

Meyers considered hanging it up and pursuing other career opportunities, but his family urged him not to quit.

“[My parents] were like, ‘Chase your dream,’ so that whole year I was just being all in,” Meyers said.

He lived with his parents in Atlanta in 2023 while he trained during the day and, at night, worked for DoorDash and Uber Eats to help pay his expenses, according to a story on Bengals.com. His football journey took a positive turn when his trainer, Manny Rodriguez of Ultimate 48 Performance, urged him to take advantage of a local workout for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, a Canadian Football League team. Meyers paid the $100 tryout fee – and impressed the CFL coaches enough that they offered him a contract.

Sure, it wasn’t the NFL, but it was better than DoorDash – and he’d be making money for playing the sport he loves.

But Meyers’ dreams soon took another hit when he suffered a pair of injuries in the 2024 season – first breaking his hand and then separating his shoulder, an injury that required surgery. He had played well in his limited time on the field, but he wasn’t sure he had done enough to catch the attention of NFL scouts.

During those uncertain moments, he leaned on his faith.

“That was the only thing that could really provide some stability,” Meyers told Bengals.com. “I’ve got to lean on my faith because there’s no way I could justify what’s going on. I’ve got to lean on God, I have to, He’s my foundation. He’s got to be doing something.”

He drew inspiration from the Old Testament story of Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually became a servant in Egypt to Pharaoh.

“I look back at my journey, none of this is supposed to happen, none of this makes sense on paper,” Meyers said. “You look at Joseph. … Every step he took felt like he was moving further away from where he was called to be, and that’s how I felt.”

His best season, though, was just around the corner. In 2025, Meyers helped lead the Roughriders to the CFL title (the Grey Cup) while catching 65 passes for 1,056 yards and eight touchdowns in 15 games.

Finally, Meyers had proven to NFL scouts that he could excel against professional competition. He signed with the Cincinnati Bengals earlier this year, and then stood out during preseason games and practices, achieving the ultimate goal for a player fighting to survive the final cuts: a spot on the 53-man roster.

He was officially part of an NFL team.

Meyers will take the field Sunday when the Bengals host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 1 p.m. Eastern.

He credits all of his success to the God who was there every step of the way.

“If you achieve something that you can do by yourself, you probably didn’t dream big enough,” Meyers told Bengals.com. “This can only happen if God does it, because if not, I can’t do this by myself. … Everything is perfectly and divinely placed by God.”

(Image credit: Screenshot/Bengals.com)