The NFC South’s biggest targets: Marques Colston

By Darrell Laurant  |   Wednesday, November 01, 2006  |  Comments( 0 )

New Orleans Saints
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Remember that advertising slogan for Madden Football -- if it's in the game, it's in the game?

Wrong.

Marques Colston is definitely in the game for the New Orleans Saints this season, leading all NFL rookie wide receivers with 33 catches for 577 yards and six touchdowns. But although he's an avid game player (he bought himself an Xbox as a reward after his first pro touchdown), there is no Marques Colston on the playing fields of Madden.

It's hard to blame Big John, though. After all, who knew?

Colston was a seventh-round draft pick from Division I-AA Hofstra, and the Saints already seemed set at wide receiver with their trio of Donte' Stallworth, Joe Horn and Devery Henderson.

What probably kept Colston from getting one of those "Kid, we'd love to keep you, but we just don't have a spot for you" consolation talks was the fact that Saints coach Sean Payton was also a rookie. He came to New Orleans with a clean slate -- no preconceptions, no favorites.

And very early in training camp, Payton decided he liked Colston better than Stallworth. Liked his size (6-foot-4, 231 pounds), liked his speed, liked his hands, liked his work ethic, and liked the fact that he could double as a tight end.

So just before the preseason ended, New Orleans traded Stallworth to the Philadelphia Eagles for linebacker Mark Simoneau, and Colston was in.

"Not ever, in my wildest dreams, could I have imagined this happening," Colston said.

Which raises the question, how could this happen? How could a player with 182 catches, 284 yards and 22 touchdowns in his college career fall to Round Seven in a draft everyone said was weak in wide receivers?

This is, after all, an age of hi-tech, high-intensity scouting, when prospective NFL players are timed down to the nano-second, measured repreatedly for body fat and even probed for their deepest thoughts.

Maybe it was the level of competition Colston faced, although no one seemed concerned about that when Jerry Rice came out of Mississippi Valley State or Terrell Owens was drafted from UT-Chattanooga.

Perhaps it was the shoulder injury that kept him on the sidelines in 2004. But he was declared completely healthy, and ran a 4.43 at the Indianapolis combine.

The Saints even drafted another wideout, Mike Hass of Oregon State, ahead of Colston. But for the most part, pro football is ultimately democratic, in a Darwinian sort of way. These days, it's also about money -- if Colston could perform at a similar level than Stallworth for a lot less money, it was a no-brainer.

Given Colston's size, Payton might have initially seen him as a possession receiver, but the rookie left that image in the dust when he hooked up with Drew Brees for an 86-yard touchdown against Carolina.

Colston credits Joe Horn with being a mentor in his early weeks, and still considers Horn the team's No. 1 receiver. Yet Colston has better numbers than Horn across the board so far, and has also produced three more catches, 70 more yards and four more touchdowns than the Eagles' Stallworth.

This probably won't last, because every defensive coordinator on the Saints' schedule has taken notice of the rookie by now. Early on, he had the benefit of tight and/or double coverage on Horn.

He was such an unknown, in fact, that the notoriously chatty DeAngelo Hall of Atlanta didn't even bother to trash-talk him.

"He didn't say anything," Colston said about lining up across from Hall, "and neither did I."

He doesn't have to -- his stat line says it all. And you can bet Marques Colston will be in the Madden game's next edition.

Get more New Orleans Saints insights at RealFootball365.com
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