Has-Beens, Never-Weres Make Winner in Atlanta

While they come from vastly different backgrounds, the Atlanta Falcons have much in common. No one wanted most of these guys.

“That’s constant motivation for me,” said Jamal Anderson, the 201st player selected in the 1994 draft. “I don’t care how long I play, I’ll always remember the teams that passed me by. I’m still keeping tabs on the running backs who were picked ahead of me.”

Anderson, the NFL’s second leading rusher with 1,846 yards, has plenty of teammates who are also seething. The team that will meet Minnesota in the NFC championship game today is dominated by low-round draft picks, bargain-basement free agents and aging players who were supposedly washed up.

Like Anderson, rookie offensive tackle Ephraim Salaam was a seventh-round draft pick. Other players who made it past the first round include: offensive guard Calvin Collins (sixth); defensive tackle Travis Hall (sixth); linebacker Henri Crockett (fourth); tight end O.J. Santiago (third); and defensive end Chuck Smith (second).

As least those players were drafted. Five-time Pro Bowl linebacker Jessie Tuggle wasn’t. Neither was center Robbie Tobeck.

“There are hundreds of players picked over me who are not even in the league now,” said Tuggle, a 12-year veteran. “I guarantee you if I was free right now, there’s 29 other teams that would want me.”

Two-time Pro Bowl quarterback Chris Chandler was a freebie from the Tennessee Oilers, acquired for fourth- and sixth-round picks. Defensive end Lester Archambeau was traded by the Packers for someone named James Milling. Offensive guard Gene Williams cost the Falcons a fifth-round pick.

Linebacker Cornelius Bennett and safeties Eugene Robinson and William White were all in their 30s when they signed with the Falcons, their best days supposedly behind them. San Diego figured 33-year-old Tony Martin was on the downside of his career when it sent the receiver to Atlanta for a mere second-round pick.

Defensive tackle Shane Dronett was cut twice within a year--including by the Falcons--before returning to Atlanta as a last resort. Receiver Terance Mathis signed on after starting one game in four years for the New York Jets.

The longest road of all was traveled by fullback Bob Christian, one of the Falcons’ most valuable players before a knee injury finished his season. A 12th-round pick in 1991, he was cut three times before ever playing an NFL game, even failing to make the London Monarchs of the World League.

“We have some steals on this team,” said Anderson, who naturally considers himself the biggest one of all. “Outside of Bob Whitfield, who’s a first-rounder on my line? Who’s a second-rounder?

“Think about this team. In essence, when you look at the Falcons, it’s just a bunch of guys who were low-round picks for the most part, but love to play the game.”

Whitfield, a left tackle who was drafted eighth overall in 1992, and cornerback Michael Booker, the No. 11 pick last season, are the only starters chosen in the first round by the Falcons. The only prime free agents lured to Atlanta were Pro Bowl cornerback Ray Buchanan and kicker Morten Andersen.

“When you look at their team, there are some No. 1 draft picks,” Minnesota coach Dennis Green said. “But there are also some guys that were looking for jobs.”

The Falcons went 15-2 this season, proving that there’s more to player evaluation than how fast they run the 40 or how much they can bench press.

“It all comes down to the intangibles,” Anderson said. “Are you an athlete? Can you play this game? Sometimes you’ve got teams whose only prerequisite is size, speed and strength. But that’s not always what makes a football player. I wasn’t the strongest player or the fastest player.”

Even the Falcons were infatuated with pure physical skills in the past. While that philosophy worked with Deion Sanders (1989) and Whitfield, it also led to such disastrous first-round picks as Aundray Bruce, Steve Broussard, Bruce Pickens and Lincoln Kennedy.

“You appreciate it more . . . when you’re not in a situation where you’re given everything, when you’re not the poster boy for the entire organization,” Anderson said.

The Falcons traded away their No. 1 picks from 1994-96 before Dan Reeves took over as coach and head of football operations. Over the last two years, he selected Booker and Keith Brooking in the first round, but Atlanta has still been more productive with its later picks.

Four starters were taken in rounds three through seven, while Tim Dwight (a fourth-rounder this season) has been one of the team’s most dynamic players as a kick returner and third receiver.

“There’s an opportunity to play right away strictly because of the salary cap,” Reeves said. “It’s important to make some good decisions, whether it’s free agents or sixth- and seventh-round draft choices.”

He pointed to Salaam, who showed glimpses of the same domination on film as his San Diego State teammate and fellow offensive lineman Kyle Turley, a first-round pick by the New Orleans Saints.

“You never know what motivates those guys when they’re coming out of college,” Reeves said. “Now that they’ve got to make a living at it, how are they going to respond? Ephraim is a great example.”

So is the rest of the team.

“For one reason or another, someone else didn’t want us,” Anderson said, grinning. “Now, they all want us.”