With a career spanning four decades and multiple genres, it’s strange to wonder what Keanu Reeves might have done for a career if he hadn’t decided to become one of cinema’s greatest action heroes and the best example of a bad actor turned good. So, it’s surprising that one lowkey role could have led to him taking a very different route to success.

It would be understandable if he’d nearly become some kind of spiritual guru or a martial arts master, given his frequent undertaking of both roles in his filmography. Or, if he’d given up the big screen to dedicate himself fully to his music career. However, it was an offer from the NFL that could have changed his entire career trajectory.

According to draft analyst Matt Miller, “Keanu Reeves was offered a tryout at QB with the Raven while filming The Replacements.” A somewhat forgotten football film starring not only Reeves but Gene Hackman and Jon Favreau, The Replacements required Reeves to undertake plenty of training to get the game scenes right. After all, he was playing the star quarterback – or, at least, the replacement for the star quarterback during a pro players’ strike.

Renowned for his rigorous preparation for roles, including learning martial arts and training to perform his own stunts, Reeves was unsurprisingly dedicated to his football training. Headed by football coordinators Alan Graf and Mark Ellis, the football training led Reeves to make an impression on NFL coaches for his footwork. So much so that he was offered a chance to try out as a quarterback.

The Replacements was set in Washington but filmed in Baltimore, so it was the Baltimore Ravens who extended an invite to the actor. This is even more astonishing given Reeves’ age at the time. While he might have looked like a spritely 20-something, he was already 36 and had 16 years of acting work behind him. Professional sports players have a famously short-lived career due to the demanding physical nature of the job, with the NFL touting an average retirement age of 27.6 years. So not only was the beloved actor good enough to be invited to try out, but he was already nearly a decade over the average retirement age of an NFL player.

However, Reeves turned down the opportunity due to upcoming Hollywood projects, and alas, the world never got a double-hyphenated actor-cum-quarterback Keanu. Or rather, a triple hyphenate, given his work as a musician with his band Dogstar. The man really can do it all.

Perhaps it’s for the best because if Keanu had gotten the job, we might have been robbed of his return to his role as Neo in The Matrix sequels and his portrayal of the iconic John Wick. But surely the man would have been just as beloved a football player as he is an actor, given his standing as one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. So, maybe the world missed out on Reeves being crowned the nicest guy in the NFL.