So long Drew: We hardly knew ye

By Andy Targovnik  |   Thursday, August 24, 2006  |  Comments( 8 )

Dallas Cowboys
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Drew Henson has to be wondering how it all came crashing down. Just a few years ago, he was sitting high on top of a mountain. Now he's buried in its lowest dale.

When the Dallas Cowboys decided to cut ties with Henson Wednesday, what was touted as a can't-miss career, became an official nightmare.

It seemed like just yesterday that Henson was the junior quarterback of the 2001 Michigan Wolverines. Despite missing three games during the season, he led that squad to the Rose Bowl -- and looked great doing it. He completed 61 percent of his passes, and threw for 2,146 yards and 18 touchdowns. Henson didn't know it at the time, but that was as good things would get for him.

Had he decided to return for his senior year in 2002, it was a near certainty that he would have been the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft the following April. But he didn't. Instead, he signed a $17 million contract to play baseball for the New York Yankees.

Henson's two-year minor league baseball career was a disaster. In his final season at Triple-A Columbus, he batted .234, had more strikeouts(122) than hits(113), and committed a whopping 28 errors in the field. (He did make a couple of brief appearances on the Major League team but totaled just one hit in eight at-bats).

How bad a baseball player was Henson? So bad that he agreed to let the Yankees off the hook to the tune of $12 million to try and salvage his football career.

So when the Dallas Cowboys acquired his rights in 2004, things seemed to be looking up. Dallas looked like the perfect situation for Henson. After all, the Cowboys were in desperate need of a franchise quarterback; and who better to play for than a legendary head coach who had great success with the likes of Phil Simms, Drew Bledsoe and Vinny Testaverde?

But it never panned out. His only career start as an NFL quarterback came on Thanksgiving Day of '04 against the Chicago Bears. The Dallas Cowboys' rookie completed 4-of-12 passes for a miniscule 31 yards and threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown. Parcells yanked Henson at halftime; and it was game, set, match for the guy who kept Tom Brady on the bench at Michigan.

At that point, Henson's career was like a helpless skier caught in an avalanche: Rolling downhill, totally out of control. He didn't play at all in 2005; and this past spring, he played in Europe for the Rhein Fire. Henson felt if he could improve, he might get his shot to play again. "I want to be a starting quarterback in the NFL," Henson wrote in his on-line diary, "so the fastest way for me to improve is to play games."

It didn't work, however. He showed up at training camp hoping to compete for the backup quarterback position. But he wasn't even good enough to be the third-stringer. So Parcells and team owner Jerry Jones decided to cut their losses and move on.

No doubt, Henson will catch on with some other team. Can he resurrect his career? Has he bottomed out?

It was Richard Nixon who said: "Only when you've experienced the lowest of valleys can you appreciate the majesty of the highest peaks."

When all you have to show for four years as a professional athlete is eight Major League plate appearances and 18 NFL passes, I can't imagine things getting much lower. Then again, who knows?

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