Brandon Watts Among Finalists for Army All American Bowl

(below is an excerpt from the article as reported in Atlanta Journal & Constitution, 07/14/2008.  Please click the link provided to view full article.)

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By S. THOMAS COLEMAN

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 07/14/08

A total of 37 players from Georgia are among 472 nationwide finalists for the 2009 U.S. Army All American Bowl, scheduled for Jan. 3 in San Antonio.

Of the 472 seniors, 90 will be selected and extended official invitations to play in the game, which will be televised on NBC.

Georgia has the fourth most players on the list, behind Texas (68), Florida (63) and California (52).

Former Golden Hawk Robert Edwards in Sports Illustrated's 2008 'Where are they now?' Issue

(below is an excerpt from the article as reported in SI, 07/14/2008.  Please click the link provided to view full article.)

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The pain began in the ambulance on his way to Honolulu's Straub Clinic & Hospital—excruciating pain, "like dislocating your finger, times 50," Edwards would later say—but even that did not compare to the agony that overwhelmed him when he awoke from surgery that night. That's when he learned that he'd suffered what Georgia's Director of Sports Medicine, Ron Courson, who treated Edwards during his rehab, calls "the worst knee injury I've ever seen." Edwards had torn three of his left knee's four major ligaments—the ACL, MCL and PCL—and had partially torn the fourth; he had damaged a major nerve; and, most serious of all, he had sliced the artery through which blood reaches the lower leg. His doctors told him that if the sutures in the artery didn't hold, they'd be forced to amputate below the knee. "You'll never play football again," the doctors said, "and if you walk again, you will use a cane for the rest of your life."

As Edwards wept in his Hawaii hospital bed, his fellow 1998 rookie John Avery didn't realize that his NFL career was also nearing its end. The two had met as rival SEC running backs (Avery attended Ole Miss), and they bonded at the '98 Senior Bowl and the NFL combine. By the time the Dolphins selected Avery 29th in the '98 draft, he and Edwards were close friends. But while Edwards was a bruising 5'11" and 220 pounds, the quicksilver Avery was just 5'9" and 190, a feature back in a scatback's body. He rushed for 503 yards in '98 as a backup for Miami and was ninth in the league in kick-return average, but the 16 games he played that year would constitute the bulk of his NFL career. "I wanted to be an every-down back," says Avery, a Richmond native, "but nobody wanted me to be."

Jimmy Johnson, then Miami's coach and general manager, decided he didn't want to pay a first-rounder's salary to a part-timer. During the '99 season Avery was shipped to the Broncos, where he was buried behind Terrell Davis and Olandis Gary; Avery played in just six games and had five rushing attempts in '99. Before the 2000 season the Broncos cut him, and it appeared his football career was over. "Some days I wish I hadn't been so talented at football," he says. "Then maybe football wouldn't have broken my heart."

But broken hearts and broken knees can be mended, and Edwards's and Avery's paths would converge, against all odds, in the backfield for the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. (cont'd)