Every day before practice, Emmanuel Butler tucks two bracelets inside his white gloves.

The purple one on his left wrist reads, “Patience is key.” The burgundy band on his right wrist has “Remember they doubted” etched in yellow.

Butler, one of the 11 receivers on the Saints roster, recently needed to keep both mantras in mind.

He needed patience while he recovered from an undisclosed injury that kept him sidelined for six full practices and the preseason opener. And as for the doubters, Butler’s known them since high school.

Only one college program recruited him: Northern Arizona, an FCS school in Flagstaff, Arizona. Most coaches declared the 6-foot-4, 220 pounder too small to play tight end and too slow to be a receiver. Butler went undrafted in 2019 after getting invited to the NFL Scouting Combine.

“I don't like to sit down and be sad about it,” Butler said of going undrafted. “I kinda actually enjoy it because it's pushing me to work harder.”

Butler is far from the only Saints player who has dealt with patience and doubt. As of Aug. 19, there are 12 Saints on the roster that played college football at non-FBS programs.

Butler, along with Harvard’s Nick Easton, Columbia’s Josh Martin, Villanova’s Ethan Greenidge, Hampton’s Michael Ola, Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s Terron Armstead, Idaho State’s Josh Hill, Idaho’s Kaden Elliss and Sacramento State’s Darnell Sankey all suited up at the FCS level.

Then there’s Deonte Harris, who played for the Division II’s Assumption College; Dan Arnold, who came out of Division III’s Wisconsin-Platteville; and David Onyemata, who played at Manitoba, a program affiliated with U Sports — one of Canada’s versions of the NCAA.

The 12 of them comprise a fraction of the former small school players currently trying to make the cut into sport’s highest echelon: the National Football League.

Can't see the graphic below? Click here.

• • •

Harris, a pint-sized return specialist, stood at the Saints 14-yard line when he caught his first NFL punt against the Minnesota Vikings.

As the 5-foot-6, 170-pound Division II product darted up the field to his left, the cheers from the 73,000 fans in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome grew louder with each yard he gained.

For comparison’s sake, the cumulative attendance at Harris’ alma mater of Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, counted just 9,439 for its five home games combined last season. The attendance number for all four years? 48,512.

Before the Saints preseason opener, Harris said the largest crowd he previously played in front of was no more than 3,000 people.

“Being out there was definitely different,” Harris said. “... This is everything you work for, to be in front of a crowd like that.”

The same goes for the other rookies who played at small schools last season. Elliss’ alma mater, Idaho, averaged 11,280 people, while Butler’s Northern Arizona pulled in 7,036 per game. Greenidge’s Villanova had 5,661 on average.

• • •

On any given day during training camp, there are approximately 2,880 football players on rosters throughout the NFL.

And as of Aug. 19, 443 players on NFL training camps either attended non-FBS schools or came up through the international ranks. That works out to roughly 15.4 percent.

The breakdown consisted of 296 former FCS football players, 102 former Division II football players, 16 former Division III football players, six former NAIA football players, eight former Canadian college football players and 15 others. Those others mostly played rugby or soccer overseas.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Transactions occur every day, so these numbers have likely changed slightly since Aug. 19. Additionally, these numbers don’t include players who attended FBS colleges, but did not play football, like Packers tight end Jimmy Graham (Miami, basketball) or Saints receiver Cyril Grayson Jr. (LSU, track).

Can't see the graphic below? Click here.

The chances for any player regardless of their background to make the 53-man roster is slim. Approximately 1,700 players will make the cut come Aug. 31, just 58.9 percent of those on training camp rosters.

Eight of the 12 small school Saints have previously made an active roster.

Hill, Armstead and Martin are all entering their seventh seasons in the league. Ola has played for nine teams in six seasons. Easton has been in the league for five years. The Saints drafted Onyemata in 2016, and Arnold is preparing for his third season. Sankey went undrafted in 2016 and has played on several practice squads, briefly seeing time on the Colts' active roster in 2017.

One common denominator linking their journeys? Learning and taking advice from experienced teammates.

Martin, who the Kansas City Chiefs brought on in 2013 as an undrafted free agent, absorbed knowledge from five-time Pro Bowler Tamba Hali. Hali brought Martin out to California to train in the offseason, where they ran the beaches and did Jiu Jitsu.

Armstead said four-time All-Pro guard Jahri Evans took him under his wing. Evans was a small school product too, attending Division II Bloomsburg in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, in the early 2000s.

Arnold spent his rookie season on injured reserve, but said he made the most of it by “being a bug on the wall.” Arnold suited up at receiver then and sat next to Michael Thomas in the meeting room. Arnold absorbed as much as he could from the All-Pro wideout, like watching how Thomas took notes in meetings.

Butler said he often picks Sankey’s brain, but the two have a deeper connection, too. Butler’s younger brother, Isaiah, now plays for Sankey’s alma mater, Sacramento State.

In practice, veteran receiver and return specialist Ted Ginn Jr. sometimes pulls Harris aside after punt return drills.

Can't see video below? Click here.

“It’s like a family atmosphere here,” Harris said. “For somebody like him to pull me to the side and coach me up when I did something wrong, or even tell me when I did something right, it’s just a blessing.”

Elliss rattled off the names of nearly all the Saints linebackers in regards to who he’s been leaning on. He’s not shy about asking questions, saying “not one person has said no” to help him with his development.

Martin said seeing Elliss, and other small school players on the roster, “brings back that nostalgia.” And now that Martin’s far removed from the early days of his career, he enjoys passing along lessons learned.

“I think it's only right to pay that forward,” Martin said. “I think it's a responsibility to keep the sport alive and just as a human being to do what I can to to help others.”

• • •

Players end up at small schools for myriad reasons, but size is often a contributing factor. That held true for Butler and Harris, but also for Saints assistant special teams coach Phil Galiano.

Galiano played at Shippensburg University — a Division II program in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania — in the late 1990s. When he graduated from high school, Galiano said he was 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds. By the end of his freshman year, he said he gained 20 pounds and grew a bit taller, too.

Galiano isn't the only Saints coach hailing from a small school, either. He's joined by head coach Sean Payton, senior offensive assistant/wide receivers coach Curtis Johnson, running backs coach Joel Thomas, senior defensive assistant Peter Giunta, special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi, assistant special teams coach Phil Galiano, assistant offensive line coach Brendan Nugent, offensive assistant D.J. Williams, special teams assistant Michael Wilhoite, and assistant strength and conditioning coaches Charles Byrd and Rob Wenning.

Can't see the graphic below? Click here.

But once players make the training camp roster, some coaches say their size doesn’t matter.

“The neat thing is once they get here, we don't care how they got here,” Galiano said. “... Once they're here, now it's up to them to do what they want with it.”

Armstead — a 7-year veteran — found his way to the NFL via Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

Even though the Saints drafted Armstead with the 75th pick in the 2013 NFL draft, he still felt like he had something to prove.

“Regardless of what anybody says, it matters once you first get here about level of competition,” Armstead said. “... When you're coming from the smaller schools, they can always have their knock on the level of competition, so just being able to come out and perform early to show you belong, that you deserve to be on this field, in this league, it’s a chip on your shoulder.”

Arnold, the Saints’ only Division III product, agreed with Armstead.

“They're not going to give you the benefit of the doubt, because they're going to assume that whatever competition that you played against in college is not anywhere close to a Power 5 school,” Arnold said. “... But you're here for a reason. They obviously saw something on tape.”

Between social media and advanced technology, scouting these days is legions ahead of where it was five years ago, let alone 25 years ago.

Giunta said the biggest difference in the game between then and now is the depth of scouting. Giunta first started coaching at the NFL level in 1991 with the Philadelphia Eagles.

“We had three full-time scouts and the coaches did the rest of the stuff,” Giunta said, “so some of the smaller school guys were hard to find.”

Fast-forward to 2019: The Saints website lists 18 scouts.

Even though they’re able to find that talent, Giunta said it’s becoming increasingly harder to develop them. Two reasons for that are the spring practice limitations and the elimination of two-a-days.

“The hardest part now for a guy to make the roster is there's no two-a-days,” he said. “With two-a-day practices, those guys got more reps so they had a better opportunity to make the team. That's what I think is huge. If you get opportunities you’ve got to take advantage of them. You're not going to get a lot with only one practice a day.”

Interactive: How Saints small-school finds stack up in NFL? 23 players, coaches -- one's named Payton As the New Orleans Saints prep for another season with large expectations, they do so while leaning on a dozen players with a common thread: S…

For those players who don’t make the roster, pathways leading back into the NFL are few and far between.

The NBA has the G-League. MLB has the minors. But the NFL?

NFL Europe disbanded in 2007, and most other unaffiliated football farm systems are now defunct.

The United States Football League (USFL) ceased operations in 1986. The first iteration of the XFL lasted just one season in 2001. The Alliance of American Football (AAF) flamed out before its 10-week schedule finished last year.

“It was great when they had the NFL Europe so that the guys could develop and play at this level,” Giunta said. “Too many good players just need development and right now there's nothing for them to develop because they don’t make the 53-man. There's nothing left for them if they don't make the practice squad to get better.”

Giunta led the St. Louis Rams’ defense as a first-year coordinator in 1998 when an unknown quarterback named Kurt Warner came aboard.

Far before Warner embarked on his Hall of Fame career, the Northern Iowa alumnus played for the Arena Football League’s Iowa Barnstormers and NFL Europe’s Amsterdam Admirals. Giunta credited Warner’s previous stops with preparing him for the NFL.

“He was scout team player of the year one year, MVP of the league the next year because he had a chance to develop from a small school,” Giunta said.

• • •

Rivalries are embedded into the fabric of college football, but once small school players hit the big leagues, they start pulling for one another.

“We hated other guys in our conference, but I've talked to other players from just being back home and they're all rooting for you,” Arnold said.

Arnold is cheering for a former rival, too: Whitewater-turned-Green Bay receiver Jake Kumerow.

Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater and Wisconsin-Platteville are 123 miles apart in southern Wisconsin. Both programs play in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, where there’s no love lost between any of the eight member schools.

Arnold and Kumerow technically never played against each other in college, because Arnold didn’t see the field against Whitewater as a freshman in 2013, and Kumerow sat out his senior year against Platteville in 2014.

“We're a dime a dozen out here,” Arnold said of Division III-turned-NFL products. “... It's definitely awesome when you see those guys where you're like, 'Hell yeah, we can still do this. We can still play with these guys.'”

That visibility isn’t just beneficial for the NFL, but it’s a positive for the sport at all levels.

Because somewhere down the line, they’re inspiring the next generation of small school football players who aspire to reach the NFL.

“It's every kid's dream to go play at this level,” Galiano said. “And when they see more smaller school guys getting that opportunity, I think that's a big deal."