Blaylock Beats the Odds to Earn Spot on Chargers

They have a minicamp, demand participation at their voluntary off-season workouts then practice twice a day in training camp.

The Chargers tell their players they have the opportunity via hard work to secure steady employment, but do you really believe Bob Christian has a chance to bypass Ronnie Harmon, Marion Butts, Eric Bieniemy and Rod Bernstine on the depth chart? Bob who?

Keith McDonald and Derrick Faison could have made every catch, run every route to precision and delivered doughnuts to Coach Bobby Ross each morning, but come Tuesday and the cut to 60 players they will be heading home.

Junior Seau could have stayed on the beach until Sept. 5, giving Chris Collins the chance to make every smashing tackle. It wouldn’t have made any difference. On Sept. 6, Seau will be on the field and Collins will be in his living room.

It’s the certified miracles, however, that do happen that attract these lost souls to fight the losing cause. It’s the Tony Blaylock story.

Cut in Cleveland, assigned to third team in San Diego, thanks for showing up, Tony.

But he did show up. He was there for the first minicamp and then the second, and maybe the coaches weren’t paying as much attention to him as they were to the others, but he continued to compete.

They had someone else lined up as the starting cornerback in the off-season workouts, but Blaylock kept showing up. They had someone else in mind to play backup to the guy they had starting, but when training camp opened Blaylock persisted.

It’s the last day of training camp today, and Blaylock is still here, and now he’s the Chargers’ starting right cornerback.

“I guess if there has been a rap on him it’s that he has been an up-and-down player,” said Billy Devaney, the Chargers’ director of player personnel. “But he started in minicamp working hard, and the more you watched him, the more steady he became. He has continued to take advantage of the opportunities.

“I mean he’s playing better now than at any time I have ever seen him.”

This didn’t figure to happen, but instead of being worried by Tuesday’s cut to 60, Blaylock will concern himself with the 49ers’ receivers Friday night. Just another impossible training camp dream come true.

“You want to know how far I have come?” Blaylock said. “I’m in Cleveland last year and it’s the first time in my career where I felt I wanted to just quit.

“It got so bad that I wasn’t on speaking terms with my coach. I’d be walking down the hallway and he would be walking down the hallway and he would be looking at the ceiling or the floor. Do you know how hard it is to work for somebody when your boss won’t talk to you?”

Blaylock took exception to being regularly chastised in crude fashion in front of his peers. He stepped to the side with his position coach and asked to be treated with dignity in the future.

“That’s when it really went sour,” he said. “I asked to be let go, but they kept me. I wasn’t very happy.”

A few days before Thanksgiving, Blaylock reported for duty with the Browns and went about his business. When he arrived at home at day’s end, he received a phone call from his agent.

“He wanted to know what was going on,” Blaylock said. “Teams were calling him because the Browns had released me earlier in the day. I had seen every one of the front-office people for the Browns that day and no one had said anything.

“I had been there four years and they didn’t even let me know I was released. They still haven’t called.”

The Chargers put a claim on Blaylock and added him to their roster for the final two games last season. They didn’t know much about him, other than the fact that he couldn’t get along with his coach and wasn’t playing much for the Browns.

But they told him if he worked hard in minicamp, off-season workouts and training camp that he would get a chance to play for the Chargers this season. Of course, that’s what they also told Christian, Faison, McDonald and Collins.

On the final play of Wednesday’s morning practice, however, Blaylock stepped in front of a Stan Humphries pass for the interception. Just one more solid play to validate a job-winning performance in training camp.

It does happen.

“This was a clean slate for me and I feel there’s a reason for my being here,” Blaylock said. “The Lord just worked out some things for me, and now I have a second chance.”

On November 15 he will have the chance to return to Cleveland when the Chargers take on the Browns.

“The guy’s name stood out on the waiver wire when we saw it last year,” General Manager Bobby Beathard said. “We made a couple of calls and the only negative seemed to be a personality conflict with a coach.

“He’s a good kid and I think he would still love to get in position to prove them wrong. Every once in a while it’s good to have a guy under those circumstances.”

Hello, Cleveland.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” Blaylock said. “I’m kind of looking forward to that.”

Three or four months ago Blaylock’s best chances of seeing Cleveland again were by buying an airline ticket or watching TV. He caught the Chargers’ attention, however, and training camp ends today for Tony Blaylock, just like the Chargers told him it could.