When the draft ends, the NFL door has not been blown shut: the best front offices do more than draft well—they find college free agents who can help their teams

Sporting News, The, May 13, 2005 by Dan Pompei

After 255 players are drafted, you might suspect the leftovers couldn't even make a decent stew. But college free agents can provide wonderful ingredients, even on a deep and talented roster.

The Colts are proof. They have prioritized finding undrafted players and succeeded with them as well as any team. Among the veterans on their roster who joined the team as college free agents are projected starting middle linebacker Gary Brackett, running back Dominic Rhodes, defensive end Josh Thomas, receiver/return man Brad Pyatt, tight end Ben Utecht and receiver Aaron Moorehead.

About 450 undrafted players normally sign NFL contracts each year. Last year, only 39 college free agents from the 2004 class made opening day rosters. Colts president Bill Polian believes as many as 150 of them have the ability to make it in a typical year.

The trick in the college free-agent game is to find a match. Teams have to identify which players fit their systems and situations, and players have to identify which of the interested teams needs them most. Many college free agents who have the ability to play in the NFL end up unemployed because they were the wrong size bolt for their team's nut.

Quite a few undrafted players end up playing in the league with their second or third team. That explains how 23.2 percent of the players on rosters last September had entered the league as college free agents.

"We try to spend a good deal of time deciding who is worth pursuing and not worth pursuing," Polian says. "A lot of that depends on what we draft, where we think a guy has the best chance of making the team. We've had some success with it, principally because we work pretty hard at identifying who they are."

Polian believes college free agents have the same value as late-round picks. Really, how much difference can there be between a seventh-round choice and a player who just missed the cut? Five of the free agents the Colts signed last week had draftable grades on their board--guard Matt Ulrich, running back Marcus Williams, receiver Levon Thomas, defensive end Justin Brown and defensive tackle Blake Lobel.

Typically, a late seventh-round draft pick gets a signing bonus of about $25,000, although it can vary depending on the length of the deal. An undrafted player, if he is highly sought after, might get a signing bonus near that amount.

There were fewer dollars for undrafted players this April, mostly because there were fewer undrafted players worth paying. The thin draft class made for an especially thin college free-agent group. As a result, the Colts allotted only $85,000 in bonus money, less than half of the $179,000 they spent a year ago. The Titans signed 36 college free agents, which might be an unofficial NFL record, and paid only $17,000 in signing bonus money. Many of those players were driven more by the opportunity the team offered.

Small schools can be a rich source of college free agents. When Polian was with the Panthers, he signed free-agent running back Fred Lane out of Lane College, and Lane ran for 809 yards as a rookie. Among the Colts' signees, Williams is from Maine, Brown is from East Central Oklahoma, linebacker Nick Hannah is from Eastern Oregon, linebacker Chris Laskowski is from Florida Atlantic, guard Jason Russell is from Central Arkansas and receiver Davon Fowlkes is from Appalachian State. "We don't care about their size and level of competition if they are athletic and producers," Polian says.

Many teams begin their pursuit of college free agents--or players they believe will be undrafted--during the sixth round of the draft. The Colts wait until after the draft ends because Polian says he has found that once an agent hears the Colts are interested in signing a player if he goes undrafted, the agent will call other teams interested in the player trying to spur one of those teams to draft him.

Some sign pretty quickly. Others shop around. The Colts failed to sign one of their targeted college free agents last week because the player believed he had a better chance of making another team's roster.

In a lot of training camps, the only expectation for undrafted free agents is that they'll make decent sparring partners. The Colts know some of those sparring partners can do more than take a punch.

Bide and seek

These college free agents stirred up interest after the darft
before deciding on teams. Purdue's Jon Goldsberry mostly
was a linebacker in college but was signed by the Bills to
play fullback. Mercer's Wesley Duke didn't even play football
in college. He was a basketball player; and the Broncos
aren't certain what position he will play.

Player                Team         Bonus

CB Brandon Browner    Broncos      $21,000
TE Tony Curtis        Cowboys      $20,000
TE Wesley Duke        Broncos      $20,000
FB Jon Goldsberry     Bills        $20,000
ILB Mike Goolsby      Cowboys      $12,500
S Ernest Shazor       Cardinals    $12,500
S Jim Leonhard        Bills        $10,000
RB Kay-Jay Harris     Dolphins      $6,500