USA TODAY International Edition
Super Bowl heals pains of snubbed
Rosters of Patriots, Giants brimming with players who took indirect routes
INDIANAPOLIS — Danny Woodhead remembers the 20- hour drive back home to Nebraska after he was cut by the New York Jets. Kevin Boothe took it hard when told he wasn’t good enough for the Oakland Raiders.
They’ve encountered bumps in the road, detours, setbacks and snubs. Sunday, all will be in action in Super Bowl XLVI between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.
“Some players get drafted, other players get brought in. However they got here, it
doesn’t really matter,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick says. “We just have to try to remain competitive by bringing in good quality talent, let them compete with each other and take the best players.”
New England has 25 players it drafted, including wide receiver Deion Branch, back with the team after a stint with the Seattle Seahawks. New York has 26 of its draftees, plus quarterback Eli Manning, picked first overall by the San Diego Chargers in 2004 and then traded to the Giants.
Of those drafted players for New England, 11 are starters on offense or defense. For the Giants, 12 of their draftees are in the starting 22. But the Patriots have seven players they originally signed as undrafted rookies. The Giants have eight.
The other players on each roster arrived through various routes, whether they were cut by other teams or played out their contracts somewhere else. Center Dan Connolly was signed by the Patriots in September 2007 after he was cut by the Jacksonville Jaguars. He spent that season on the Patriots practice squad. In 2008, he played in one game. Sunday, he will start in the Super Bowl.
“I take a lot of pride in knowing that I and a lot of other guys have come from kind of nothing. We’ve had to work hard to get where we’re at,” Connolly says.
He was out of work for a week after Jacksonville cut him.
“I was at home in St. Louis and was kind of preparing myself for what’s next,” he said. “Go back to school, finish up, look to get a job or hopefully get picked up by another team. I didn’t know where it was going to go.”
His agent called and said he had a flight to New England. “I didn’t know how big of a shot I had, but it was a shot,” he says.
Tollefson, a Giants defensive end, was cut by the Raiders and Green Bay Packers.
If at first you don’t succeed
At Chadron State in Nebraska, Woodhead ran for 7,962 yards and 101 touchdowns in four seasons. But that was Division II, and he was 5- 7, 195 pounds. He wasn’t drafted in 2008, but he signed with the Jets.
He spent his rookie season on injured reserve. In 2009, he played in 10 games, mostly on special teams. In 2010, he played in the opener but was cut to make room for a receiver.
He and his wife, Stacia, drove home to Nebraska.
“It’s a long drive, not that enjoyable when you just lost your job either, about 20 hours or something,” Woodhead says.
The Patriots signed him last season four days after the Jets cut him. They’d been watching him with the Jets, just as they do with other players on the bubble around the league at the end of preseason. He played in 14 games for the Patriots, started three and ran for 547 yards and five touchdowns.
“I think ( the Patriots) just try to get the guys that they think will work in their system the best,” Woodhead says. “And we go out there and try to do our job every single play.”
After Boothe’s career as an offensive lineman at Cornell, he was a sixth- round draft pick of the Oakland Raiders in 2006. That season, he started the final 14 games at right guard. But he was waived by the Raiders just before the start of the 2007 season and claimed by the Giants. He’ll start for them at left guard in the Super Bowl.
“It ( being waived) was tough,” Boothe says. “I think that was the first time basically in life that I was told I wasn’t good enough. Iwas so used to being one of the better guys on the team. It was tough, but luckily that only lasted for a day. I was claimed by the New York Giants, and it’s been great ever since.”
What was the difference between what happened with the Raiders and what happened with the Giants?
“I think at the time with the Raiders, it was a coaching change. I didn’t fit in with their plans,” Boothe says. “Luckily the Giants thought that I would be a good addition to their team, and I’ve been trying to prove them right ever since.”
Patriots starting linebacker Rob Ninkovich was signed as a free agent in early August 2009 after being cut by the New Orleans Saints. In three previous seasons, he’d had stints with the Saints and the Miami Dolphins.
He said Saints coach Sean Payton saw him as a long snapper.
“I didn’t think he was seeing me in the right way as a football player,” Ninkovich says. “I think that was my only opportunity to be on the team, and that was it. . . . It didn’t work out there, and I came here. So it was just my fate to come to New England.”
Ignored on draft day
Cruz, a wide receiver, wasn’t released by an NFL team, but he wasn’t drafted by one either. He led the Giants with 82 receptions for 1,536 yards and nine touchdowns in the regular season. As a University of Massachusetts senior in 2009, he caught 59 passes for 868 yards and five touchdowns. He wasn’t drafted.
“I wasn’t really shocked,” says Cruz, who is 6- 0, 204 pounds. “I understood the process and understood that I wasn’t a guy that had blazing statistics or was 6- 6, 230 pounds or anything like that. I understood that I probably wasn’t going to get drafted and would just have to make the best of my opportunity . . . and just do the best I could to break through on the team.”
It wasn’t that the Giants immediately saw something everyone else had missed.
“We had Victor Cruz ranked just like everyone else. . . . He was a free agent,” Giants general manager Jerry Reese says. “That happens. In scouting, it’s not a perfect science. I don’t even know if it is a science at all. . . . Every now and then you get lucky with guys like that.”
Cruz didn’t get lucky. He got to work. He had a big preseason as a rookie in 2010, catching four touchdown passes, but he missed most of the season while on injured reserve with a hamstring issue. This season, he burst onto the scene.
“Some guys just slip under the radar ( in the draft),” he says. “Once those hidden gems kind of get figured out and somebody sees them and they get their opportunity to make the best of it . . . I was fortunate enough to open up some minds.”
Green- Ellis, in his fourth season with New England, led the Patriots with 667 rushing yards and had 11 rushing touchdowns. He played two seasons of college ball at Indiana and two at Mississippi, where he ran for 1,137 yard as a senior.
He was undrafted in 2008, and New England signed him as a free agent. “My agent at the time, Roosevelt Barnes, made a decision, and I trusted him, and that’s where I ended up,” GreenEllis says.
As a rookie, he made three starts and ran for 275 yards and five touchdowns. In 2009, he didn’t have a start, but in 2010 he made 11 of them and had 1,008 yards and 13 touchdowns. Now, he’s in the Super Bowl.
“For our organization, I think the guys ( rounding up talent and developing it) do a good job,” he says. “The personnel department and our coaches, they find who they want for whatever they want them to be doing . . . and we just go to work.”
Matt Slater, a fifth- round draft pick by New England in 2008, sees similarities between all of the players who overcome being drafted in the late rounds, not being drafted or being cut by other teams.
“You kind of have that sense of urgency from the day you come into the league knowing that things are not going to be easy for you,” Slater says. “You’ve got to come in and be willing to do dirty work, whatever it takes to stick around. I think a lot of guys on this team have had that mentality, and that’s why we’ve had the success that we’ve had.”
And now they’re in Super Bowl XLVI. And remember, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was a sixth- round draft pick.
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