On a dark, desperate day in February, Maurice Clarett found an ally named Terrell Davis.
“I didn’t know what to expect of him, but he surprised me,” Davis, a former Broncos star running back, said Sunday. “But he was a good, genuine guy. He wasn’t some villain or a bad dude like some people said or like some of the stuff I read. Plus, I thought he was a really good football player.”
Davis met Clarett, the former Ohio State phenom, at the NFL combine in Indianapolis. That’s when Davis took Clarett under his wing.
“I just sat down and talked with him, told him to look ahead,” Davis said.
Davis arrived at a time when Clarett’s dream of resurrecting his football career seemingly had crashed and burned on the turf inside the RCA Dome. His times in the 40-yard dash were 4.72 and 4.82 seconds. Some fullbacks in the group ran faster than Clarett. One scout even scoffed he could run faster than Clarett.
Then Clarett infuriated the assembled NFL running backs coaches by quitting and not finishing his workouts. That only fueled his reputation as a difficult, spoiled player – a reputation that dated to his freshman year at Ohio State. That was in January 2003 when he led the Buckeyes to the national championship, culminating in a victory over Miami in the Fiesta Bowl. Clarett hasn’t played football since that game.
Clarett finds trouble
After that one dream season, Clarett had a minor run-in with the law. Then he got into trouble for accepting improper benefits and lying about it to NCAA investigators. For that, Ohio State suspended him for the 2003 season.
Then he sued the NFL, challenging the league’s rule that a player must be out of high school for three years before becoming eligible for the draft. He lost that fight.
But Davis, who now works as an analyst for the NFL Network, said Clarett still has a lot of fight in him. And after the Broncos shocked the league by selecting Clarett with the last pick of the third round Saturday night, Davis is even more convinced Clarett can make it.
“I was never a big fan of times and 40s and all that stuff,” Davis said. “To me, it’s about being a football player. What do you do with the pads on? That’s what matters. And I think Maurice, if he’s in shape, is a good, tough football player.”
A decade ago, Davis was in a similar, though not nearly as dire, situation as Clarett. In 1995, Davis failed to wow scouts at the combine and was drafted in the sixth round, with the 196th pick. Davis went on to win the MVP award in Super Bowl XXXII and rushed for 2,008 yards en route to being named NFL MVP in 1998.
Speed sometimes overrated
Given Clarett’s checkered past, it’s a longshot that he’ll have a storybook career to match Davis’, but the Broncos think he can play, despite his terrible times at the combine.
“How do you know he had that speed at Ohio State when he ran as a freshman?” Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said. “Terrell Davis wasn’t, so-called, very fast. But he played very fast in games and had great cutting ability. So speed isn’t always a factor.
“He’s got great elusiveness, the ability to make some big runs. Sometimes speed can be overrated.”
So Shanahan, with plenty of counsel from running backs coach Bobby Turner, made Clarett the ninth running back taken in the 2005 draft.
“It’s a pick that could look really, really smart,” team owner Pat Bowlen said. “Or people someday might wonder why we did it. But I think it was worth the pick in the third round. And from what I understand, he was going to probably go in the next round.”
Reports were that Dallas was prepared to take Clarett Sunday in the fourth round. To hear Clarett tell it, he couldn’t be happier with how things worked out.
“I can feel the energy that I felt when I was a freshman going into college,” Clarett said Sunday from the Broncos’ Dove Valley headquarters. “I’m going to a great program. The bar is set high here. They have a great tradition of running backs. Coach Turner took a gamble on me, he and Coach Shanahan, and I just don’t want to make them look stupid.”
Turner was key to bringing Clarett to Denver and will be key to his chance of success. The Broncos’ running backs coach taught Davis, Olandis Gary, , Clinton Portis and to thrive in Denver’s zone-blocking, downhill- running system.
“The thing about Bobby Turner is, he’s not just a great judge of talent, he makes you work,” Davis said. “And he knows character. He won’t waste his time with somebody who is messing around.”
Weighty issues
One of the major questions about Clarett will be his ability to stay in shape. He weighs about 235 pounds now, but there were reports he tipped the scales at 250 in 2004. Before the draft, the Broncos repeatedly called to make sure Clarett was still in shape.
“That’s something that me and Coach Shanahan are going to talk about, and Coach Turner, as far as the weight and everything,” said Clarett, who plans to begin working out soon at the Broncos’ headquarters. “From here on out, whatever they ask me, whatever they want me to do, is what I’m going to do. That’s how I showed improvement, doing that in college. I plan on taking it to another level now that I’m in the NFL.”
As for his meltdown at the combine, his troubled time at Ohio State and his two-year battle to make it to the NFL, Clarett said, “It’s water under the bridge now.”
As for his abilities on the football field, he said: “Here, I’m in a system and I’m just ready to get going. The fact of the matter is I could have run faster and I should have ran faster, but I didn’t. I’m ready to go working now. I love playing football. I’m not being judged in the 40 times or how high I jump. I’m basically being judged on how I fit into a system and how well I run.”
Staff writer Patrick Saunders can be reached at 303-820-5459 or at psaunders@denverpost.com.
