It is the quintessential NFL Draft day experience for the country’s best college football players. You sit before a national television audience in New York City and when your name is called, stride to the stage and don the hat of your new team.
That is the way Ahmad Brooks always imagined it. But that isn’t the way it will be for the former Virginia linebacker. Instead, Brooks will wait at his parents home in Woodbridge, Va. this afternoon to hear which NFL team will take him in the league’s annual supplemental draft. The event is held for college underclassmen who lose their eligibility after the deadline for turning pro has passed.
“I look at this like a second chance,” said Brooks, who was dismissed from Virginia’s team in late March by coach Al Groh for a violation of team rules. “It doesn’t matter to me where I’m drafted. I just want to make the best of my opportunity.”
USA Today’s national defensive player of the year in 2001 after his senior season at Hylton High, Brooks has since endured a rollercoaster ride of his own. He twice led Virginia in tackles and as a sophomore was a finalist for the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker. But there were plenty of off-the-field issues, including an arrest for marijuana possession in 2003 and rumors of a suspect work ethic and failed drug tests.
Then came the injuries. Knee surgery in the spring of 2005 forced Brooks to miss the first three games of his junior season and he also fought ankle and back injuries while playing just six games. Three months later he was gone.
“Ahmad needed to grow up,” said Greg Williams, Brooks’ Raleigh, N.C.-based agent. “Some people do that quicker than others. But he never blamed anyone but himself and took all the lumps and all the criticism like a man. He will be better for it.”
Brooks quickly began rehabbing his image and his body. By the time Brooks worked out for 22 NFL teams in Charlottesville on June 22 he had dropped from 292 pounds to 260 and now sits at 255, according to Williams. The agent also submitted results of five drug tests Brooks has recently passed and had Brooks visit renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala., who reported Brooks’ knee was structurally sound.
Several NFL teams, including San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, the New York Giants, Green Bay and Cincinnati, have expressed interest. Brooks will likely be chosen in the third or fourth round, although some NFL personnel have told Williams that Brooks could go higher.
Supplemental income
» Ahmad Brooks is the son of Perry Brooks, who was drafted by New England in 1976 and played defensive line for the Redskins from 1978 to 1984.
» In the NFL supplemental draft, teams that select a player in a given round forfeits their draft pick for that round in next April’s draft. In every round a team e-mails the draft office indicating whether or not they choose a player. If multiple teams pick that player then he goes to the team with the worst record from the previous season.
