Connor McGovern is an NFL star with a fascinating family history.
The New Orleans Saints center comes from an uber affluent family from North Dakota and is the heir to a stunning $500 million potato empire.
McGovern descends from vegetable royalty.
According to Forbes in 2013, his grandfather Ron Offutt is a fourth-generation Great Plains farmer who grows more potatoes than anyone else in the world.
As a result, Offutt is known as ‘The Sultan of Spuds’, and just so happens to be one of the wealthiest people in the state of North Dakota.
McGovern’s dad, Keith, is President of RD Offutt Company, while RD Offutt Farms is the primary supplier of frozen french fries for McDonald’s.
The agriculture company’s big break came in 1973, when “McDonald’s franchises were popping up everywhere and jacking up potato consumption.”
A year later, Offutt and his business partner reportedly paid $600 an acre for huge amounts of land to supply the fast food giant with potatoes to be fried into hash browns and fries.
However, as Front Office Sports reports, the company has now expanded to be the primary potato supplier for fast food chains such as Wendy’s, Raising Cane’s, Frito-Lay chips, and Idahoan Instant Mashed Potatoes, growing beans and corn on more than 190,000 farmland acres.
McGovern came from money and that could have been a stumbling block to his early career.
He reportedly grew up learning farming first-hand from his father and mostly kept his family’s wealth to himself.
The 6ft 4in center could have easily gone into the family business and made millions of dollars, but ultimately decided to pursue his dream of playing pro football.
“I always say I come from blue-collar farm money, and that’s a little different,” McGovern says.
“We have good years and bad years. It takes a lot of work to pull money out of the ground and make it grow, and most of the stuff you deal with is out of your control, like weather and all that kind of stuff.
“So it’s a little different than having oil money that comes out of the ground. It’s not watching the stock market move up and down.
“Growing cash and having liquid gold are two very different things.”
McGovern played college football at Missouri and was selected by the Denver Broncos in the fifth round (144th overall) of the 2016 NFL draft.
The offensive lineman signed a rookie four-year, $2,603,900 contract with Denver, including a $263,900 signing bonus, $263,900 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $650,975, according to Sportrac.
McGovern redshirted his rookie season, but in his sophomore year he played in 15 games for the Broncos, the final five of which were at right guard.
In 2018, McGovern was named the team’s starting right guard, but by Week 11 he was moved over to starting center following a season-ending injury to Matt Paradis.
In 2020, the 31-year-old signed a three-year, $27 million contract with the New York Jets, starting all 16 game during that campaign.
He made the starting position his own, but two key injuries, an MCL issue in 2021 and a dislocated knee in 2023, stunted his trajectory.
Last month, McGovern was signed by the New Orleans Saints off the Jets practice squad with just over half of the 2024 season still to play.
He has ultimately made $34,277,634 over his seven years as a pro, but may have made even more if he’d gone into the family business.
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