Where Is DeShone Kizer Now? The NFL Quarterback Turned Blockchain CEO Building the Future of Physical NFTs

Several years ago, DeShone Kizer made a decision that left many in the sports world bewildered. The former NFL quarterback, who once started games for the Cleveland Browns and trained alongside Aaron Rodgers with the Green Bay Packers, walked away from professional football while still in his athletic prime. Today, Kizer is the CEO of One of None, a blockchain-based startup reimagining how creators profit from physical collectibles through NFT technology. His daily routine now begins at 4:45 a.m. not for grueling workouts, but for back-to-back business meetings and strategic planning sessions. This transformation from gridiron to the blockchain space represents one of the most compelling career pivots in recent sports and tech history.

From Notre Dame Star to NFL Starter: Building the Foundation

Kizer’s path to the NFL wasn’t straightforward, and that complexity defined his character long before his cryptocurrency pivot. At Notre Dame, the quarterback was more than just an athlete. While studying finance, he spent late nights with his roommate Pat Darché developing business ideas instead of watching game film. During his sophomore year, Kizer led the Irish to a 10-2 season after replacing an injured starter, earning national recognition that caught the attention of NFL scouts.

The 2017 draft brought both opportunity and heartbreak. Kizer was selected by the Cleveland Browns in the second round—ahead of him, only Mitchell Trubisky, Deshaun Watson, and Patrick Mahomes were chosen. What seemed like a promising start crumbled quickly. The Browns went 0-16 that season, a historically demoralizing campaign that tested Kizer’s resilience. Rather than becoming discouraged, he channeled his energy differently. He spent Tuesdays—the team’s only meaningful day off—visiting University Hospitals’ pediatric cancer ward instead of partying in Las Vegas like many of his peers.

After being traded to the Oakland Raiders and bouncing between several teams as a backup, Kizer’s mind increasingly drifted toward business. He watched Aaron Rodgers not just for football technique but for how the legendary quarterback “maintains his intellectual integrity” while excelling at the sport. This observation reinforced Kizer’s belief that he didn’t have to compartmentalize his identity—he could be both a thinker and an athlete. But increasingly, his thoughts gravitated toward entrepreneurship.

The COVID-19 Catalyst: When Blockchain Became Clear

The turning point came in spring 2020. With the NFL on lockdown and free agency frozen, Kizer had time to reflect. He reopened old business journals and found a double-circled idea: creating a platform where creators could benefit from resale royalties on their limited-edition products. While physical collectibles rarely generated secondary market income for their original creators, NFTs solved this through blockchain technology. Why not merge these worlds?

Kizer reconnected with his college roommate Pat Darché and shared the vision. What started as COVID-era brainstorming evolved into serious development. During the 2020 season, while serving as the Las Vegas Raiders’ “Quarantine Quarterback”—attending virtual Zoom meetings from isolation—Kizer quietly continued building One of None with Darché. They brought in Mike Darché, Pat’s brother, to lead the blockchain and technology architecture.

Even as Kizer competed for a roster spot with the Tennessee Titans during the 2021 season, he and Pat entered “bunker mode,” often working until 4 a.m. on the startup. His commitment to football wavered. “The bunker session didn’t really have much football in it,” Kizer would later admit. His player notebook’s final six pages contained nothing but One of None strategy notes. When the Titans released him, the choice crystallized: he could pursue another team’s practice squad, or he could build something unprecedented in the blockchain space.

At 25 years old, in the top 0.0000001% of athletes globally, Kizer chose the latter.

One of None: Solving the Provenance Problem

The core problem One of None addresses is deceptively simple yet complex in execution: provenance. In the art world, tracking an item’s ownership history from creation through every subsequent sale determines its value. NFTs solve this digitally through immutable blockchain records. But what about a limited-edition Kobe Bryant skateboard? A Rolex watch? An arcade game?

One of None’s solution is the “hybrid NFT”—a digital twin that links permanently to a physical asset. Here’s how it works: When you purchase a collectible through the platform, you receive both the physical item and its corresponding NFT. A vault system provides the critical innovation. You can choose to keep your skateboard displayed in your home or store it in a One of None vault. While vaulted, you can freely sell the NFT to another collector. But once you redeem the physical item for personal display, the NFT becomes permanently locked to you, preventing ownership gaps that would destroy provenance.

Kizer tested this concept with 115 designer T-shirts from artist Blake Jamieson. He expected perhaps 5-10% of collectors would prefer vault storage over taking items home. The actual result shocked him: 40% chose the vault. When they repeated the experiment with skateboards, 60% selected vault storage. “That was our validation,” Kizer explained. People understood the asset value proposition. They recognized that collectibles could appreciate like financial instruments rather than merely serve as decorative pieces.

The Technical Architecture: From RFID to Luxury Scale

The logistics are brutal. Kizer threw himself into shipping, storage, security, and tracking infrastructure. To prevent counterfeiting—such as swapping a real Kobe skateboard for a knockoff after vaulting—One of None embeds RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips into physical objects. These chips interact with blockchain records and vault sensors, creating an immutable chain of custody.

One of None doesn’t reinvent the wheel entirely. The company partners with existing high-end art storage and security providers who already possess sophisticated infrastructure for handling valuable physical assets. But the innovation lies in marrying these physical-world logistics with blockchain verification and NFT mechanics.

The complexity extends to scaling. One of None collaborated with Hoop Dream Studio to create hybrid NFTs for custom basketball backboards—bulky, difficult-to-handle physical art that seemed impossible to “put on blockchain.” They solved it. If they can manage the shipping, storage, and blockchain tracking of oversized arcade game cabinets (as with their Knights of Degen partnership with Ice Games), the system scales to nearly anything. “If a pop-a-shot can sit in our Virginia vault, change hands 10 times over six months, and never leave the building, why can’t you do that with a car?” Kizer posed to his team.

From 1 Million to 100 Million: The Ultimate Vision

This question points toward Kizer’s long-term ambition. Currently, roughly 1 million people globally engage with digital NFT art. Meanwhile, 100 million care deeply about physical luxury goods—watches, sneakers, vehicles, designer apparel. Kizer deliberately chose the harder path to access the vastly larger market. “I’m more interested in the 100 million than the 1 million,” he stated.

The implications are staggering. Early collaborations with artists like The Ghost, Fuzi, and Art Mobb represent proof of concept. But Kizer’s ultimate vision targets luxury behemoths: Rolex, Porsche, Ferrari, Louis Vuitton, Dior. These brands have spent decades cultivating prestige through scarcity and limited editions. One of None’s hybrid NFT infrastructure could revolutionize how they manage secondary markets while ensuring creators and brands capture resale value.

At 26 when he left the NFL, Kizer sacrificed millions in potential earnings and a career that could have extended years longer. The stakes for One of None are equally enormous. When he presented the project at NFT.NYC in June 2022—the culmination of two years of intensive development—he addressed his team with the clarity of a pregame speech: “There’s a lot of freaking hours going into this week. Whatever extra piece, extra idea, extra time or effort you can put into these next four weeks—please join me in it.”

Where Kizer Stands Now: Building the Bridge Between Worlds

Today, DeShone Kizer remains largely outside the headlines, but he operates in a space with potentially greater long-term impact than many headline-dominating athletes. While former NFL colleagues appear in endorsement deals or commentator booths, Kizer is architecting infrastructure that could reshape how billions of dollars in physical collectibles change hands and retain value.

His alarm still sounds at 4:45 a.m. His days still revolve around creator partnerships, blockchain engineering challenges, and logistics innovation. He’s traded the roar of stadium crowds for the quieter intensity of building a technology platform that bridges physical and digital worlds in ways previously impossible. To many observers, walking away from the NFL appeared irrational. But Kizer found something that excited him far more than football ever could: the opportunity to permanently alter how value and ownership work in the physical world through blockchain innovation.

This is where DeShone Kizer is now—not on a football field, but constructing the infrastructure for the next generation of collectible commerce.