It was supposed to be a night of celebration, the culmination of eight years of bonding between an enigmatic, talented boy-turned-man and his unrelenting mentor.
As night fell, though, on Saturday, April 28, in Jacksonville, Fla., Marcus Thomas and Richard Burnoski were not in a party mood. There were no toasts to the first-rounder, just fulfilled worries.
“We shed a few tears together that night,” Burnoski said this week, remembering the hollow first day of the NFL draft when a card with Thomas’ name on it never reached the commissioner’s podium in New York.
“Marcus was the top defensive tackle on the board. We all knew that. Everyone knew that. But because of what he did, we knew he wouldn’t be a top-10 pick like he should have been. But I thought he’d go no later than the third round. There was no way he’d last past the third round, even with all of the character assassinations on him. I thought there would be only five or six defensive tackles drafted, but there were nine and some of those cats we never heard of. That night, I thought, ‘Good Lord, Marcus may not get drafted at all.”‘
Burnoski, Thomas’ high school coach-turned-agent, wasn’t alone in his dire draft assessment.
“I really thought my days of playing football were over,” Thomas said. “I really thought that was it. I thought I was done.”
Perhaps because of that type of honesty which Thomas has always conveyed, he was given another chance. The Broncos, famous for giving questioned characters a chance, finally ended Thomas’ lost weekend in the fourth round after trading a package, including a third-round pick next year to Minnesota, to take him at No. 121.
The Broncos overlooked the fact that Thomas was kicked off the eventual national champion Florida Gators after repeatedly testing positive for marijuana and for attending a party in Orlando, a decision that violated the conditions Gators coach Urban Meyer made for Thomas after he missed curfews. The Broncos focused on the fact that Thomas – who wrote an open letter to Florida fans after his dismissal, apologizing for his actions – got counseling for his problem and that he passed drug tests 17 consecutive weeks before the draft. The weekly drug testing was Thomas’ idea.
“I got a call from Denver on the second day of the draft, and they wanted to know if I had learned my lesson,” Thomas said. “I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ And I did. I realized that you have to live the right way or people are going to think you’re a bad person. I don’t want people to think I’m a bad guy.”
While it’s early in his career, the Broncos don’t think Thomas is a bad guy on or off the field. Thomas, 22, has done everything the team has asked off the field and has become a major part of the defensive line. He has played significantly, and he could soon break into the starting lineup.
“Marcus has been very good,” coach Mike Shanahan said. “He’s been what we expected him to be.”
Long road traveled
“What a road it’s been,” said Thomas’ mother, Sheila Mote, from Jacksonville, where she lives. “What happened was a shock because, as a mother, I didn’t think my son would get in trouble. But he did, and he learned from it, and really, I had no doubt he’d fight through this and succeed.”
Mom had no doubts, but there were obstacles. After Thomas was dismissed from the team – Denver first-round pick and Florida teammate Jarvis Moss maintains that Thomas was the best player on the team – Thomas felt instant embarrassment and fell into what Burnoski called a “deep depression.” Burnoski remembers that the first thing Thomas said after his dismissal was that he felt bad for his mother.
Mote, who works for an insurance company, was a proud parent and had some of her son’s mementos in her office. Thomas said he has no relationship with his father. Growing up, he said, it was “just me and my mom.”
“All he was worried about was that people would tease his mother for him getting kicked off the team,” Burnoski said. “That really hurt him. She’s his lifeline.”
Restoring image
Once the sting of his dismissal wore off and reality hit, Burnoski and Thomas made it their mission to recapture his status as a draftable player. Thomas was considered a borderline first-round pick when he was thinking of leaving school after his junior season, but he said he returned to school to “win a championship.”
It became clear after Thomas was kicked off the team that his stock was falling. The 35-year-old Burnoski – who got into the agent game mostly because of his close bond with Thomas – had the player he first met in the eighth grade move into his young family’s home. Together, the two fought to repair a once-pristine image.
It wasn’t easy.
“I had one team tell me they wouldn’t touch Marcus with a 10-foot pole,” Burnoski said. “I told that team that their guards are going to need a 10-foot pole when Marcus knocks them on their butts.”
Burnoski said it hurt him that Thomas’ name was connected to suspended Tennessee cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones as a bad character.
“There were kids in this draft that had assaulted police officers, beat up girls, were in drive-by shootings – and Marcus was the bad guy,” Burnoski said. “Look, marijuana is illegal and it was the wrong thing for him to do. But this is no thug. He was one of the best kids I’ve ever coached. Until his senior year in college Marcus was a model student. … I’m just glad Denver gave him this chance.”
Gators defensive coordinator Greg Mattison said he has kept tabs on Thomas mostly because “Marcus was a pleasure to be around.”
Mattison said Thomas never made excuses for his issues.
“He made a mistake and he paid a rough price for it, missing being part of the national championship team,” Mattison said. “But life is all about coming back from mistakes, and Marcus has done that. He owned up to his problems, and he has made it through. I always knew Marcus was a tremendous kid deep inside.”






