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It didn’t take long for Arizona Cardinals linebacker Devon Kennard to realize football wasn’t going to last forever.

Before his senior season at USC, Kennard suffered his third significant injury since his final year of high school: a torn pectoral muscle, after an ACL tear and a hip surgery. As a former standout prospect at Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, Kennard had lofty goals. He didn’t just want to play in the NFL; he planned on spending a decade in the league. But faced with numerous health concerns, a slew of coaching changes and a lack of a breakout season, Kennard had to ask himself an important question.

“What if that doesn’t happen?” Kennard says now, reflecting on that moment of his life.

Glamorous as the NFL lifestyle might appear, it is usually short-lived. The average career is only 3.3 years, according to Statista, and a 2015 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 15% of NFL players go bankrupt after being out of the league for a dozen years.

Fortunately for Kennard, his redshirt senior season at USC propelled him to a fifth-round selection in the 2014 NFL Draft and a career with the New York Giants, the Detroit Lions and, now, Arizona. And while Kennard has managed to beat the odds so far – he recently joined the Cardinals on a three-year, $20 million deal — that hasn’t stopped him from planning ahead.

“I realized I wanted to reach success and financial security and financial independence for myself and my family with or without football,” Kennard says. “And my college career kind of showed me you never know what’s going to happen with football.”

Over the last decade, Kennard, who turns 29 next week, has developed into a savvy real estate investor, amassing a multimillion-dollar portfolio that he says has averaged an impressive 8% to 12% return. By funneling his time, effort and money into ensuring he never becomes another statistic, Kennard has obtained the financial security and independence he so adamantly sought and has effectively taken control of his family’s financial future.

Kennard’s perspective on life after football comes from his father, Derek, who played 134 games in the NFL before retiring at age 34, when Devon was 5. The memory left a lasting impression on the younger Kennard.

“I realized you retire and you have so much life ahead of you still,” he says.

He had already started networking with all of this in mind when he left USC with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications and business management. After his rookie season with the Giants, his teammate Mark Herzlich introduced him to Chad Williams and John Ratliff, two businessmen who were holding a seminar to help NFL athletes prepare to invest their money.

Kennard showed up having ripped through every bit of recommended reading, complete with highlighted sections and notations. He recalls the event as a “perspective-changing” experience, having learned fundamental business concepts such as how to read financial statements, understanding debt versus equity, business forecasting, valuation analysis and more. Kennard’s level of preparation and engagement impressed Williams, who mentors him to this day.

“[Devon] clearly has all the attributes of a lifelong learner,” says Williams, a managing director at align5. “He’s curious, he wants to make himself better, and he’s willing to put the work in.”

After the seminar transformed the idea of a business career from something Kennard “hoped” to do to a practical endeavor, he made his first investment. In 2016, he teamed up with a former USC teammate and purchased an already-renovated single-family property in Indianapolis. They hired a management company to handle the day-to-day and sat back and collected a few hundred bucks a month in profit. Kennard and his partner sold the property this past year and netted a 100% return on the $12,000 each initially invested. Between two NFL players, that kind of money isn’t much. But it still taught Kennard a valuable lesson.

“It was getting our feet wet and teaching us the game,” he says.

Investing in real estate offers two key advantages for pro athletes: a relatively low time commitment and cash flow. The NFL season is rigorous, and Kennard often finds he doesn’t have the bandwidth to process every piece of information related to his businesses. Instead he relies on his financial advisor, David Johan, and other members of his team to filter and simplify the details.

GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN – OCTOBER 14: Devon Kennard #42 of the Detroit Lions looks on against the Green … [+] GETTY IMAGES

Plus, Kennard says, there’s a huge misconception among NFL players who want to funnel their money into the stock market and “hope it’s gonna go up.” If they don’t figure out how to keep the money flowing and their bills paid after football ends, Kennard says, “it’s not if, it’s when you’re gonna go broke.” As a result, he’s a huge proponent of “mailbox money,” or passive revenue streams—in this case, the monthly income from rental properties.

“If your money is not working when you sleep, you’re not making money,” Johan says, quoting Warren Buffett.

Today, Kennard owns 14 properties himself and is invested in 16 other real estate deals spanning single- and dual-family properties, hotels, senior living centers, commercial buildings, apartment complexes, business loans, syndications and funds. The locations vary; he owns properties in Arizona, Kansas City and Ohio. Because he’s exposed to such a high volume of potential deals through his network, his choices remain geographically agnostic.

Part of that is attributed to his platform as an NFL player. Johan says that when Kennard signed his three-year, $17.25 million deal with Detroit in 2018, “it was unbelievable how many people went after him.” It’s been a blessing and a curse. On one hand, Kennard has a wide array of opportunities and relationships available to him. Plenty of investors will invite him to their offices or take a meeting just because he’s an NFL player. But there are also plenty of people seeking to take advantage of an athlete’s newfound wealth.

Former Tennessee Titans defensive end Derrick Morgan, who’s also built up a successful real estate portfolio, lost money based on the actions of a negligent advisor during his second year in the league. Toward the end of his career, Morgan received some valuable advice from 15-year NFL veteran Takeo Spikes while working on his MBA at the University of Miami.

“I know you just got your new contract and you poppin’ right now, but listen, it’s a little different on this side,” Morgan recalls Spikes saying. “Take advantage of the time you got to make connections so when you do transition, it’s a smooth one.”

Morgan adds, “You can get infatuated with all the fake fan love, or you can [take] that fake love/real love, whatever it is, and you can use that to your advantage.”

Kennard recognizes that “no one is going to be as interested in me as they are right now, and that window has been pretty big for me.” It’s something he’s continuing to leverage as his business career progresses.

During the off-season, Kennard hosts a book club through his Instagram account, and the most recent book was Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. Kiyosaki heard about it and invited Kennard to join him on his podcast. Kennard, who says he’s read the book ten times, jumped at the opportunity.

“I plan on taking advantage of that the best way I can,” Kennard says. “Maybe he’ll be a mentor to me. Maybe it could lead to deals. Who knows what it can become? So I’m looking forward to that. That’s just another example of using my platform and my passion and knowledge for real estate for business and financial literacy and running with it.”

Kennard’s next business goal is to transition from a limited partner role to a general partner in some of his deals. He says it’s a way to raise his financial upside and give himself more agency over his investments. But with the time and effort required, that’s a move for after his playing career ends.

For now, Kennard is biding his time and focusing on his on-field play. He’s already succeeded in a way many other players have not, securing his future and preserving the generational wealth he’s accumulated during his playing days. Football isn’t going to last forever, and when it does come to an end, Kennard will be ready.

“My goal is to continue to grow, and I want to become a big real estate mogul when I’m done playing,” Kennard says. “I’m starting to build up to that now. And when I’m done playing in the NFL, that’s when I’ll go all in.”