There’s no better story in any NFL training camp than when an undrafted college kid - facing odds longer than a Shane Lechler punt - makes the team. It’s just so American, so Land of Opportunity.
Two years ago at Redskin Park, that kid was Stephon Heyer, the former Maryland Terp, who earned a spot as a backup offensive tackle with his impassioned blocking. This year’s under-the-radar type was Edwin Williams, another Ralph Friedgen product, who was projected as a center but convinced the coaches he could help out at guard, too.
Which raises the question: Why don’t the Redskins have more of these overlooked talents in their employ? Their title teams in 1982 and ’91, after all, were full of undrafted players and guys taken in the later rounds - rounds that no longer exist today.
(How full? Well, the ’82 club had 21 such players, according to my research, and the ’91 club had 18.)
It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense - at least not on the surface. Rosters have grown in recent years from 45 to 53, and the draft has been shortened from 12 rounds to seven. Yet this year’s Redskins have only a dozen players who weren’t drafted coming out of college. And most of them, I’ll just point out, were initially signed by other clubs (e.g. London Fletcher, Todd Yoder, Shaun Suisham, Ethan Albright and former CFLers Mike Sellers and Chris Wilson).
A curious development, to say the least. You’d think there would be more undrafted rookies/players surviving the final cut nowadays, but that’s certainly not the case with the Redskins. How come?
Albright, who broke in with the Dolphins in 1995, is convinced scouting departments just do a better job now. As he puts it, “If you’ve got any kind of ability, they’re going to know about you. It’s just harder to slip through the cracks. You can look at video of prospects on the Internet now. Heck, the prospects, will send you their video.”
It is, indeed, a whole new world. “There are no secrets out there,” Vinny Cerrato says.
Then he adds, “Somebody just told me there were 35 [undrafted rookies] who made rosters this year - about one per team. That’s like an extra round of the draft.”
Still, you look back on the ’82 Redskins, with Neal Olkewicz and Mel Kaufman at linebacker, Mark Murphy at free safety, league MVP Mark Moseley doing the kicking and Joe Jacoby, Jeff Bostic, George Starke and Fred Dean in the offensive line. Seven of them weren’t drafted, and the other (Starke) went in the 11th round. In later Super Bowls, the Redskins would rely heavily on Earnest Byner, Mark Schlereth, Raleigh McKenzie, Monte Coleman, Martin Mayhew and Ron Middleton (among others). None of them went in the first 256 picks (the length of this year’s draft), either.
Has scouting really become that unerring? Or might there be other reasons there seem to be fewer undrafted players on rosters? Clearly, free agency, which began in 1993, has had an effect, providing teams with another source of talent. Then, too, general managers might be more reluctant to cut draft choices - and keep guys like Heyer and Williams - because they have only seven picks now. If they had 12 (or 17, as they did until the mid-’70s), it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
Whatever the explanation, the hours before the final cut have never been sweatier for an undrafted rookie. Before the Redskins announced their roster, Williams says, his agent called and told him he had spoken to Cerrato and that “I’d made it. And I wanted to believe him. But I had to wait till 6 [p.m.] just to make sure.”
During the draft, you see, “about 15 teams” had phoned “and told me they were going to draft me - and, of course, they didn’t.” So he refused to celebrate until he was officially a Redskin.
Few NFL coaches can relate to this experience quite like Jim Zorn. Zorn, who played quarterback at out-of-the-way Cal Poly Pomona, was passed over in the draft, too. But he hooked on with the expansion Seahawks in 1976 and went on to have a nice career.
As a result, it probably means a little more to him when somebody like Williams makes the Final 53. “But not in the sense that I’m rooting for [rookie] free agents to make it,” he says. “It just means a lot that these guys gave the kind of performance and had to be football smart to come in and make this kind of team.”
Next year some other long-shot rookie will find his way onto the roster through a secret entrance. But as with Williams - and Heyer before him - he might be the only one. It’s not 1982 anymore… or even ’91 - just one more reason training camp isn’t nearly as much fun as it used to be.
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