Editor’s note: This is the 22nd installment of The McGinn Files, a series looking back at NFL drafts of the past 36 years. The foundation of the series is Bob McGinn’s transcripts of his annual interviews with general managers, personnel directors and scouts since 1985.
Even now, 25 years later, Mike Mamula remains the poster boy for exceptionally athletic-testing athletes gone bad.
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When the NFL Scouting Combine arrives each February, so, too, do the snide comments about Mamula’s exploits in 1995 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. Some veteran NFL executives say Mamula was the first to blow out the event. Others posted some sizzling numbers before him, but it is Mamula, more than anyone, who came to define the label “workout warrior.”
Like clockwork, Mamula is showered with pejoratives that don’t necessarily fit how he played. Yes, he was the seventh selection in the 1995 draft. No, he wasn’t a superstar. But Mamula’s six-year career for the Philadelphia Eagles hardly merits the derisive, dismissive summations that generally come his way.
Defensive tackle Hollis Thomas played alongside Mamula for five seasons in Philly. As a talk-show host there for a decade, he has heard it all. Former players often find it nearly impossible to view each other objectively. Thomas calls them the way he sees them.
“They bring him up every year, especially in Philadelphia,” Thomas said last week. “It’s, ‘You don’t want to go after the workout warrior again.’ When you hear what people say about him it’s, like, ‘Man … ‘
“It’s overblown. He gets a lot of it because of the Tony Mandariches, a bunch of guys who blew the doors off in workouts, then come into the NFL and stink up the joint.
“I’ve seen total busts. I played with Johnathan Sullivan. Oh, man. … Mamula worked at trying to get better. ‘Sully’ didn’t even try. Jon Harris, that was just godawful. He was a total bust.
“I see (Mamula’s career) as mediocre. I feel like he’s just lukewarm. If he hadn’t got drafted where he got drafted, I think people would love him a little bit more. If they hadn’t traded up to get him, I think everybody would have been fine with Mike. He got drafted before Warren Sapp, right?”
He certainly did. Eagles coach Ray Rhodes traded two second-round picks to Tampa Bay in order to move from the No. 12 slot to No. 7 and select Mamula; the Buccaneers then jumped on Sapp. In his post-pick session with the press, Rhodes immediately compared Mamula to the great Charles Haley, the ferocious pass rusher during Rhodes’ years as an assistant coach in San Francisco. The Eagles then issued the No. 59 jersey to Mamula even though the last player to wear it was Pro Bowl linebacker Seth Joyner in 1993.
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“When you draft a guy that high, you want to try to get a Hall of Fame player,” said Dan Shonka, who was scouting the Midwest for the Eagles when the choice of Mamula was made. “That’s hard to do, but that’s what you’re shooting for. In my opinion, it was an average-to-below career. It wasn’t overwhelming or anything. It was a good, solid career.”
Mamula retired following his release by the Eagles one day after the draft in 2001. Because he blew out his right knee in an exhibition game in August 1998, he played in just five of his six seasons. His career statistics included 31 1/2 sacks, eight forced fumbles and 128 hurries.
“I don’t remember any negatives other than it wasn’t his fault he was picked in the first round,” said Bobby DePaul, an executive in pro personnel for the Eagles from 1997-01. “It’s not his fault he was picked in the first round.”
Examine Mamula’s career in relationship to the seventh selection in the 10 years before his draft and the 10 years after his draft. Of those 20 No. 7 choices, the only player in the Hall of Fame is cornerback Champ Bailey (’99). Six others were voted to the Pro Bowl, but besides Bailey, the only players with multiple Pro Bowls were wide receiver Sterling Sharpe (’88), cornerback Troy Vincent (’92) and defensive tackle Bryant Young (’94). Seven of the 20 are considered busts: tackle Brian Jozwiak (’86), defensive end Reggie Rogers (’87), running back Tim Worley (’89), quarterback Andre Ware (’90), tackle Charles McRae (’91), quarterback Byron Leftwich (’03) and wide receiver Troy Williamson (’05).
“Let’s just say he was a low first-round pick or second-round pick without all the hype of being this workout freak and just bringing all that attention,” said Marc Ross, an Eagles scout during Mamula’s final four seasons. “He would have been looked at to have a pretty good career. Really kind of a solid, serviceable player. But the expectations that got put on him and the notoriety that got put on him because of the combine kind of swayed everybody.”
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Ah, yes, Mamula’s combine. On the afternoon of Feb. 11, 1995, Mamula was one of 16 defensive linemen who worked out. His audience included virtually every head coach, assistant coach, general manager and personnel staffer in the NFL.
Many in the crowd knew his name. He had 12 sacks for Boston College as a third-year sophomore outside linebacker in 1993 and had 17, including four in the Aloha Bowl mostly at the expense of tackle Jim Hmielewski, as a fourth-year junior defensive end in ’94.
Still, a lot of people in the RCA Dome seats didn’t know much at all about Mamula. Most of the scouts who visited BC that fall hadn’t written reports on Mamula because he was an underclassman and wasn’t expected to come out until the following year.
Over the next few hours, Mamula, who measured 6-foot-4 5/8 and 248 pounds, posted two 40-yard dashes that averaged 4.61 seconds, a vertical jump of 38 inches, a broad jump of 10 feet, 5 inches, a 20-yard shuttle of 4.03 seconds and a four-square drill of 7.82 seconds. The previous day, he bench-pressed 225 pounds 26 times. His score on the 12-minute, 50-question Wonderlic test was 27. His arms measured 33 1/8 inches and his hands were 10 1/4 inches.
Of the 300 players at the combine regardless of position, the fastest 40 was 4.42, the best vertical jump was 41 1/2, the best broad jump was 10-11, the best 20-yard shuttle was 3.90, the best four-square was 7.79 and the best bench press was 37. His Wonderlic score was well above the league average of 19.
“It’s almost superhuman some of the stuff that he did,” Atlanta Falcons scout Dick Corrick said a few weeks before the draft. “We couldn’t believe it. Everybody was turning around and they’re all talking, ‘Jesus, who is this guy? Where did he come from?’ When he was doing it, a lot of guys didn’t know who he was.”
DePaul, in attendance as defensive line coach for the Cincinnati Bengals, remembered the “oohs and aahs” from the NFL bird dogs. John Butler, the general manager of the Buffalo Bills, saw through peers who acted as if they had seen it coming.
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“Nobody knew,” Butler said. “Everybody was kind of looking around not saying a whole lot. Just kind of amazed by it. We know that he showed some of that on film. Now was a chance to actually see him do these types of things. The most impressive part probably was the outstanding speed in combination with the vertical jump. Those are the two correlating things a lot of times that you really say, ‘Boy, this is a very talented kid.’ I like the 20 shuttle. He had one of the superior times in that, too. That is real small-area quickness where you really see what takes place in football.”
Tom Boisture, the New York Giants’ director of player personnel, called Mamula “the talk of the combine.” Asked if Mamula was just a workout phenom, Billy Devaney, the director of player personnel for the San Diego Chargers, replied, “We think so. He was an underclassman. Nobody paid any attention to him. His stock has skyrocketed. He’s the guy everybody is going crazy over trying to move up.”
What many scouts also didn’t know was how well prepared Mamula was for the combine. Jerry Palmieri, the strength coach at Boston College under Tom Coughlin in 1993 and Dan Henning in ’94, incorporated combine drills in his winter workout program. Then, for about a month before the combine, Mamula worked in another strength program designed specifically for the combine.
“I knew that I had all the athletic abilities to do everything the way (scouts) wanted,” Mamula told Dave Spadaro of the Eagles’ website in 2016. “It was easy for me because I’d already done these drills 1,000 times. I understood what was needed from me, and I got it done.”
For the last 15 to 20 years, preparing prospects for the combine drills has become a cottage industry for personal trainers and former coaches. In the mid-1990s, players often still trained on their own campuses and weren’t as prepped as they would become. Mamula has said his confidence in being able to ace the combine testing played a significant role in his decision to renounce his final season of eligibility and declare for the draft.
Mamula and Steve Young (Allen Kee / Getty Images)Rhodes was hired by the Eagles to replace Rich Kotite a few days after coordinating the 49ers’ defense in a romp over the Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX. In an interview with Sports Illustrated a few weeks before the draft, Rhodes said Mamula was “a rare athlete, the kind who comes along once every five or 10 years.” After picking Mamula, Rhodes said, “This kid is a lot stronger than Charles Haley and a whole lot faster.”
But Rhodes wasn’t alone in linking the Haley, who was 6-foot-4 1/4 and weighed 230 coming out of James Madison in 1986 as the 49ers’ fourth-round draft choice, with Mamula.
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“You’re talking about a White guy Charles Haley,” an NFC personnel man said. “Mamula is like Haley. You don’t find many of them. I’ve never seen a guy like this. You put on any film — Notre Dame, Miami — he’s making sacks. Relentless effort. He’s not a great run player but he’s 247 pounds. I think he can be 258, 260 easy. If there was any defensive player in the draft that we’d trade up for, he’d be the guy.”
Butler was projecting how Mamula would fit in an NFL defense. “He’s maybe a Chris Slade kind of guy, a Charles Haley type because of body size,” he said. “I think he’ll have natural progression to about 255 or so. Remember when (Dexter) Manley and (Richard) Dent came out? Even Haley. They didn’t have the great size but they were used as a right end in a four-man front. They could play.”
Bryce Paup had just signed a three-year, $7.6 million contract to depart Green Bay for Buffalo after the first of his four straight Pro Bowl seasons. “You play (Mamula) like we did Bryce Paup or like (Chris) Doleman,” Packers GM Ron Wolf said. “He’d be very good.” Jerry Reichow, the personnel director for the Minnesota Vikings, acknowledged he saw some of Doleman in Mamula. “He’s not the big, strong guy,” Reichow said. “He can’t play a two-gap system. He fits our defense pretty well as a right end. He’s a pass rusher.”
Reed Johnson, a scout for Washington, labeled Mamula as a “Bryce Paup guy, only faster … a lot faster.” Chicago scout Bobby Riggle regarded Mamula as a better athlete and player than Paup, who became the NFL Defensive Player of the Year the next season. “The way the game is played today with all the three and four wides, this guy will be a real impact player for somebody,” said Bill Kuharich, the New Orleans Saints’ operations director. “The value of him is determined by the club. I heard he’s going to go in the top 10.”
Mike Trgovac, the defensive line coach at Notre Dame in 1994, didn’t begin his new gig coaching the Eagles’ defensive line until the following March. Trgovac’s career as an NFL assistant has spanned 25 years, but Mamula’s pro day in Chestnut Hill, Mass., marked one of his first workouts. “He was going to excel on those days,” Trgovac said. “Mr. (Jeffrey) Lurie was there. We interviewed him. When you talk to him, you’re not going to find a whole lot wrong with him.”
Lurie bought the Eagles from Norman Braman in May 1994. Joe Banner, one of Lurie’s best friends from their days growing up in Boston, served as the team’s vice president for almost two decades. Although Lurie was a neophyte in the NFL, he was a hands-on owner and heavily involved in the draft along with Banner, according to several of their employees at the time.
“It was just a mess,” said one member of the Eagles’ personnel department. “Jeffrey didn’t know what he was doing. He had no clue how things should be structured and organized. Banner had Jeffrey’s ear. He was just a manipulator. He was one of those guys who messed things up, basically.”
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John Wooten, an executive in personnel for the Dallas Cowboys for 16 years, joined the Eagles in 1992 as a scout before he was promoted to vice president of player personnel in February 1994. Wooten, in effect, set the board in 1995 with the assistance of Todd Brunner, the first-year scout in the Northeast; Lou Blumling, who was cutting back in his final year before retirement; Shonka, who covered the Midwest, and Ron Nay and Tony Razzano, veteran evaluators working as consultants who had led drafts with other teams and served a role educating Lurie about personnel work.
Shonka was watching film in the Eagles’ facility one day in April when Wooten approached. He said, ‘You’ll never believe this,'” Shonka said. “‘Lurie wants to take Mike Mamula.’ I said, ‘Are you kidding me? We’re going to take that guy?’ And he said, ‘I’m telling you, Dan, the deal’s already been done. They want him.'” Wooten knew Shonka had given Michigan tackle Trezelle Jenkins a fifth-round grade even though “he kicked Mamula’s ass” when the Wolverines played Boston College in the 1994 opener, according to Shonka. “John said, ‘I didn’t show (Lurie) your report,'” Shonka said.
Seven defensive linemen were taken in the first round, nine in the first 36 picks. Defensive end Kevin Carter went No. 6 to St. Louis, leaving defensive tackle Warren Sapp on the board along with Mamula. On the weekend of the draft, reports surfaced that Sapp had failed drug tests at the University of Miami and the combine. “When you get a new owner, they’re trying to set the culture,” Shonka said. “I think Mr. Lurie wanted to have a culture of guys that were good football players and good off the field. I think they said, ‘Hey, let’s make that trade with Tampa and let them deal with Sapp.'”
Some maintained that Lurie, who grew up in Chestnut Hill, was led to Mamula partially due to a sense of parochialism. Certainly, he was guided by what the Eagles regarded as Mamula’s exemplary behavior off the field when compared to Sapp and some others. “You look at the pool of defensive players and you see a lot of guys with questionable character — questions here, questions there,” Lurie said after the selection was made. “Mike Mamula is a shooting star, a guy you would be extremely proud to have in your organization.”
With the Buccaneers on the clock at No. 7, the trade with the Eagles was completed. The cost to move up from No. 12 was two second-round picks (Nos. 43 and 63). The Eagles took Mamula and Sapp fell to the Bucs at No. 12. Later, Tampa Bay packaged No. 63 in a trade with Dallas to draft a second Hall of Fame player, linebacker Derrick Brooks, at No. 28.
A vocal segment of the Eagles’ fan base never let the organization forget it passed on Sapp by trading up for Mamula.
Whether Rhodes had authority regarding the draft in his contract or not, the pick was largely his. “We always felt like the organization made the pick,” Shonka said. “Now, obviously, Ray was the top guy to make the call.” Trgovac, the NFL rookie assistant, didn’t back away from responsibility. “We were all in on it,” he said. “I think we were all in consensus on that pick. We thought that this kid could do something for us. There was a lot to like about him, especially as a college coach coming out. How many sacks did he have his senior year? The guy made hustle sacks.”
Mamula and Kerry Collins (Rick Stewart / Getty Images)The decision to give Mamula No. 59 made some sense because it was the number he had worn at Boston College. Still, Philly fans saw the disruptive Joyner when they saw No. 59. When combined with Rhodes’ immediate public comparison to Haley, who already had 85.5 of his 100.5 career sacks and four of his five Super Bowl rings, Mamula couldn’t help but feel the heat when he walked in the door.
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“But I remember that (Rhodes) compared Jon Harris to (Ed) ‘Too Tall’ Jones,” Ross said in reference to Harris, the defensive end from Virginia who flopped after being drafted late in the first round by Philadelphia in 1997. “Just don’t do that. Don’t compare people right off the bat to unique Hall of Famers. That makes it even worse.”
By opening day, Mamula was starting at right end in a 4-3 defense coordinated by Emmitt Thomas. The left end, William Fuller, made the Pro Bowl for the Eagles in 1994, ’95 and ’96. “All I remember,” Trgovac said, “is the defensive end on the other side (Fuller) always talked about how much he loved playing opposite Mamula because he’d push the quarterback to him.”
Ron Howard, the Eagles’ public relations director, was one of the first to chart hurries and include them in the team’s defensive statistics. It’s informative to note that Fuller had more than twice as many sacks as Mamula (13 to 5.5) that first year but that Mamula had three more hurries, 16 to 13.
“Mamula could get pressure on the quarterback but he could never tackle the guy,” said The Athletic’s Michael Lombardi, a consultant for the Eagles from February 1997 to June 1998. “He just couldn’t finish.”
Entering his second season, Pro Football Weekly listed Mamula as one of five young pass-rushing defensive ends who could rise in 1996. The career sacks totals for the others were 60.5 for Tracy Scroggins, 59.5 for Alfred Williams, 57.5 for Anthony Smith and 33.5 for John Thierry. Mamula finished last with 31.5.
Starting every game at right end in 1996, Mamula improved and had eight sacks and 24 hurries. In July 1997, PFW ranked him No. 29 among defensive ends. That same summer, a female bouncer at a hotel near the Eagles’ training camp alleged that Mamula exposed himself to her and filed criminal charges. Mamula issued a statement apologizing for the incident but admitting no wrongdoing.
Mamula continued to pile up hurries in 1997, leading the Eagles for the third straight year with a total of 32. His sack total fell to four, however, and in March 1998, the Eagles dealt second- and fifth-round draft picks to the New York Jets for defensive end Hugh Douglas. “We traded for Hugh Douglas, for God’s sake,” DePaul said. “We needed to upgrade, and we did. Hugh Douglas kind of took over the role of the dominant edge rusher.”
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Then, in the second exhibition game of 1998, Mamula tore the ACL and the lateral meniscus in his right knee. Rhodes was fired after a 3-13 season, and Trgovac left to join his staff in Green Bay.
“(Mamula) was one of those guys that you kind of got tired of him being close,” Trgovac said. “He could have had a double-digit sack season that second year. He was a naturally thin, thin guy. When you’re picked that high, everybody wants you to be an every-down player. That was part of his problem staying healthy. We were hoping he’d gain a little weight. He struggled with that.
“He probably held his own (against the run). He could get a little bit overmatched sometimes because of his size. But he would fight in there.”
At the 1999 combine, Trgovac recalled being approached by new Eagles coach Andy Reid to discuss Mamula, whose original four-year contract was expiring.
“He was a good guy,” Trgovac said. “He genuinely wanted to be good. Some guys come in that are drafted that high are just assholes. That wasn’t him. He was a good worker. I don’t think I ever had a problem with him studying the game or anything like that. He was a pro. He was not a problem.”
In a development of considerable surprise, Reid and Tom Modrak, the Eagles’ director of football operations, decided to re-sign Mamula on the eve of unrestricted free agency in 1999. The four-year, $11.35 million contract contained $2.75 million in guarantees. “He’s worked extremely hard,” Modrak said. “He seems to have a better appreciation of what football means to him. Mike’s hungry.” The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Phil Sheridan reported that Mamula had told teammates the summer before that he couldn’t wait to get out of Philly.
Jim Johnson, the Eagles’ new defensive coordinator, hoped that a reduced role would make Mamula more effective on passing downs upon his return in 1999 from both knee and ankle surgery. When injuries sidelined Douglas for 12 games and Al Wallace for the entire season, Mamula was back starting at right end. Johnson stood him up at times as a middle linebacker in a “joker” package in which he ran stunts in conjunction with Thomas, the nose tackle.
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In probably his finest season, Mamula led the team in sacks with 8 ½ and in hurries with 38. “He flourished in those two years with Jim Johnson,” Thomas said. “They actually even paid him. Midway through that second season he ended up getting hurt and never was able to recover from that.”
Entering 2000, independent scout Joel Buchsbaum wrote in PFW, “Mamula will never live up to the expectations Rhodes had when he made him the seventh overall pick in the ’95 draft, but last season, Mamula went from bust to contributing player.”
Mamula played mostly on passing downs in 2000 behind Douglas and Brandon Whiting, registering 5.5 sacks and 18 hurries. Bob Grotz of the Delaware County Daily Times reported Mamula played with a plantar fascia tear in his left foot that required painkilling injections most of the season. That December, a pro scout for an NFL team wrote that Mamula “gets handled by tight ends. Very poor ability shedding blocks. Doesn’t have real quickness to make up for his lack of size. Very poor player against the run. Situational pass rusher at best that has to outhustle his opponent to have any success.”
When the Eagles’ doctors pronounced Mamula healthy in late April 2001, he was released in a decision that removed his base salary of $2.7 million from the books. Only 27, he decided to call it a career. A few years later, he bought into a drug-screening company in New Jersey started by former teammate Mike Chalenski. A Buffalo native, he’s now living in southern New Jersey.
“He was a small guy,” Thomas said. “After pregame in the locker room, he’s opening up a lunch bucket with a big hoagie sandwich loaded with steak and potatoes a little bit before the game. … He wasn’t one of those people you had to coddle or anything. He was one of those guys who you’d like to have next to you in a fight.”
From 1990-2015, Mamula was one of 24 players drafted in the first round by the Eagles. Ross, an analyst for NFL Network and a consultant for the league office, spent 20 years as an executive in personnel for the Eagles, Bills and Giants. He was asked to consider Mamula’s career against the other 23 top picks. Of the 24, Mamula was the 11th best in Ross’ judgment.
Ross said the 10 who had better careers than Mamula, in chronological order, were guard Jermane Mayberry (drafted 25th in 1996), tackle Tra Thomas (11th in ’98), quarterback Donovan McNabb (second in ’99), defensive tackle Corey Simon (sixth in ’00), cornerback Lito Sheppard (26th in ’02), guard Shawn Andrews (16th in ’04), wide receiver Jeremy Maclin (19th in ’09), defensive end Brandon Graham (13th in ’10), defensive tackle Fletcher Cox (12th in ’12) and tackle Lane Johnson (fourth in ’13).
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The expectations for every NFL player are based on where he was drafted and how much he was paid. Longtime Eagles fans and football fans across the country have and undoubtedly will continue piling on Mamula, the combine superstar and for five years an NFL starter.
“I think it was a learning thing for a lot of people then and in the future,” Shonka said. “I saw firsthand you don’t take guys because of great workouts at the combine.”
(Top photo: Tom Mihalek / AFP via Getty Images)
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