Peyton Manning. LaDainian Tomlinson. Kurt Warner.
Bonafide NFL stars. The NFL postseason’s headliners.
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. Fabian Washington.
NFL playoff newcomers from Manatee County looking to make a splash of their own.
“It’s one and done, so I’m a little nervous,” said Rodgers-Cromartie, a former Lakewood Ranch football player and first-round draft pick of the Arizona Cardinals in last April’s NFL Draft. “This is when everybody wants to see how you perform, and I don’t want to go out there and stink it up. My focus is high.”
Washington, a cornerback in his first year with the Baltimore Ravens, echoes Rodgers-Cromartie’s sentiments.
“I’m going to have a lot of family and friends in the stands,” said the former Bayshore star and 2005 first-round pick of the Oakland Raiders. “I expect to play well. I’m focused.”
The two cornerbacks will be on center stage when the Cardinals host the Atlanta Falcons at 4:30 p.m. today in an NFC Wild-Card Game, then the Ravens travel to Florida to face the Miami Dolphins at 1 p.m. Sunday in an AFC Wild-Card Game.
Washington and Rodgers-Cromartie took separate paths to a shared destination.
Washington flashed onto the NFL radar following a stellar senior season at Nebraska, a top-tier Division I-A program, and bumped up his draft stock after running the fastest 40-yard dash time (4.29 seconds) at the 2005 NFL Combine.
The Raiders selected Washington 23rd overall that year. Washington was a starter in Oakland his first two seasons before being benched two games into the 2007 campaign because, “they said I wasn’t tackling well enough,” Washington said.
Washington had a tough time dealing with the situation as the Raiders became the laughingstock of the league.
On the first day of the 2008 draft, Washington was traded to Baltimore. When he heard the news, Washington said, “I would have traded myself if I could have.”
A fresh start was just the right medicine for Washington. Baltimore is a team swelling with pride and sporting a couple future Hall of Famers in linebacker Ray Lewis and safety Ed Reed who hold teammates accountable.
“Definitely,” said the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Washington, who’s recorded 31 tackles and one interception this season. “This is amazing. I’ve never been this happy about football ever. I loved Nebraska and everything we did and accomplished at Nebraska, but this season, I think we are going to do something really special.”
Special is a word often used to describe Rodgers-Cromartie.
The 6-foot-2, 182-pound cornerback was a consensus Football Championship Series All-American last season out of Tennessee State, a tiny Division I-AA school, who burst onto the NFL landscape with a blazing 40 time (4.33) at last year’s NFL Combine. The Cardinals made him the 16th overall pick in the draft.
“Coming from a small school, you are not known,” Rodgers-Cromartie, 22, said. “I was thrown into the fire this season, and I wanted to prove a point to people that I am capable of playing football.”
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