Gene Collier: Size, Like Beauty is in the Eyes of NFL Beholders

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Saturday, August 06, 2005

The truism that follows immediately has an expiration date, and even though no one knows when that is, let's say it out loud while we still can.

It is possible, here near the start of the 21st century, to play in the National Football League and to play very effectively even if you have the body of a fairly normal human being.

While it is useful, for example, for Steelers offensive tackle Max Starks to be 6 feet 8 and 344 pounds, there is still somehow room in this game for someone such as cornerback Chidi Iwuoma, who is a foot shorter and 160 pounds lighter.

Deshea Townsend, the Steelers' starting right corner, is 5-10 and 190 pounds, but he had more sacks last year than inside linebacker James Farrior, who is 6-2 and 243 and was the club's most valuable player.

Willie Parker is 5-10 and 210, and is coming off a rookie season in which he averaged 5.8 yards on 32 carries. Jim Brown averaged 5.2 for his career.

Antwaan Randle El, 5-10 and 192, remains the club's most electrifying open-field presence.
Willie Williams is beginning his 13th NFL season at 5-9, 194. When he arrived at Latrobe for his first training camp in July of 1993, there likely weren't half the number of 300-pound players in the league as today.

Maybe it was the oppressive heat, and maybe it was the always interesting collisions of the thoroughly over-muscled, but the question of how normal-sized people manage in the modern NFL was on the figurative table here this week.

"How do the small guys survive?" is the way it got phrased by Kevin Colbert, the club's top personnel guy.

Exactly.

Colbert, being a personnel guy, thinks it has a lot to do with picking the right "small guys" in the first place.

"Generally, people who are hurt a lot in college have a tendency to be hurt a lot in the pros," Colbert was saying, "but some people just have the body type -- and everybody's different according to structure and what have you -- some people can just absorb the kind of collisions that other people can't.

"But, even for a player like, say, Rod Woodson (6-0, 200), who was a great athlete, for him to play as long as he did, as well as he did, was phenomenal."

What is phenomenally under-appreciated, it says here, is the nature of the hitting in the NFL. At Latrobe, where full-speed live action is called for sparingly by the coaches for obvious reasons, some collisions still sound almost like car wrecks.

"A lot of people think they can do this," said long snapper Mike Schneck, who often finds himself running under punts at a conspicuously slight 237 pounds, "but it's hard to put into words just how big, how fast, and how powerful these people are. I remember running to cover a punt against the Minnesota Vikings, and I can't tell you who did it -- I don't remember -- but I got a shot that turned my helmet sideways and I was bleeding from the gums. I couldn't eat for three days.

"You look at a guy like Willie Williams and you have to remember that he compensates with speed, but here's what people don't understand. If there's a collision out here between me and Willie Williams, I'm going to get knocked over (even though he outweighs Williams by 41 pounds) because he knows how to deliver a hit. It's like a boxer. He knows just how to leverage himself and deliver it."

When the Steelers scout college players, they have no floor on what they call "measureables." There is no directive in place that says, "Look, don't send us somebody who's not at least 5-8 and at least 180 pounds."

"The only real question with size is, 'Is it appropriate for a guy's position,'" said college scout Dan Rooney, who covers the southeastern part of the country. "If someone's a little smaller, you have to ask yourself what he has that makes up for that. Is he unbelievably fast? Does he have great technique?

"The biggest thing I've found with small guys is inside them. They have great heart, and they're tough as hell. A lot of times, that's something the big pretty guys don't have."

The problem for the smaller guys is, in this league, 90 percent of the big guys are tough as hell, too. Fast Willie Parker might have earned the modifier, but he's not so fast he always can avoid being assaulted by 600, 700, 800 pounds of 100 percent angry. I asked Willie if that kind of arithmetic means anything to him.

"Means I gotta be careful."

(Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283.)