National Football League

Feel-good stories for Super Bowl Sunday

Published Jan. 26, 2011 12:00 a.m. ET

Peter Schrager

Though all the household names of this year’s Super Bowl on FOX will get their own podiums and moments in the spotlight on Tuesday on media day, it’s often the guys whose names you aren’t quite as familiar with who have the best personal and professional journeys to the big game.

David Tyree was a recovering alcoholic with just four catches in the 2007 regular season before making the catch that NFL Films president Steve Sabol still describes as “the greatest play in Super Bowl history.” Before making the game-saving tackle in Super Bowl XXXIV, Rams linebacker Mike Jones was an undrafted free agent who’d bounced around the league for nine years before finally ending up back in the Show Me State with St. Louis and Dick Vermeil. Dexter Jackson, Larry Brown, Timmy Smith — the list goes on when it comes to unknowns with incredible back stories who rose to the occasion when it mattered most.

Rest assured, Aaron Rodgers’ story — passed over by 23 teams in the 2005 draft, sitting in a green room for 4-1/2 hours waiting to hear his name called, and then stuck on the bench behind some other quarterback for three years — will generate quite a few headlines and more than enough feature profiles over the next two weeks. But Rodgers’ path to Super Bowl XLV might not necessarily be the most impressive or compelling story of the week. Want some truly triumphant stories to share over that 6-foot submarine sandwich platter at your Super Bowl party? Here are six other guys’ journeys worth rallying around:

6. Erik Walden, outside linebacker, Green Bay

Walden was unemployed in late October. A sixth-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys in 2008 out of tiny Middle Tennessee State, he was cut by the Dolphins at the end of training camp, picked back up by the Fish in September and then released again Sept. 28.

He spent the entire month of October anxiously waiting for a phone call, something. He kept in shape by working out during the days, stared at the phone at night, all the while raising his son in Murfreesboro, Tenn. After Green Bay outside linebackers Brad Jones and Brady Poppinga went down with injuries, Packers assistant scout Eliot Wolf dialed Walden’s number. Finally.

In Week 17 against the Bears, with the Packers’ season on the line, Walden recorded an eye-popping 12 tackles and three sacks in the 10-3 win. He’s been a stud throughout the playoffs. Nursing an ankle injury this week, he’ll be good to go Feb. 6. Rest assured, barring a work stoppage, he won’t be staring at the phone looking for work in October.

5. Bryan Bulaga, offensive tackle, Green Bay

Perhaps no 2010 first-round pick outside of Tim Tebow caught more flak in the lead-up to the draft than Bryan Bulaga. Originally considered by the pundits to be a surefire top-10 pick, Bulaga's draft stock slipped drastically in the weeks before the draft. Some of the things that were written about him?

"Bulaga makes some scouts nervous because he has short arms and was also beaten like a rented mule last season by some of the best pass-rushers in this year's draft (see Graham, Brandon)." — Don Banks, Sports Illustrated

“There are some NFL personnel men who believe Iowa offensive tackle Bryan Bulaga is the most overrated prospect in this year's draft and say he could be the second coming of Robert Gallery once he gets to the league.” — Tony Pauline, Sports Illustrated

In a first round in which three other offensive tackles and two interior linemen were taken before him, Bulaga slipped all the way to 23rd overall, where the Packers were more than happy to pounce. Short arms and all.

"I've never been in a situation in a football game where I have thought to myself after a play, 'Gosh, I wish my arms were longer,' " Bulaga said at his introductory news conference. "I don't know what you want me to say. I can't get them any longer."

In his rookie year, Bulaga did more than just quiet his critics. He excelled. When he was drafted, he was expected to play left tackle, but when 11-year veteran Chad Clifton re-signed with Green Bay a few weeks later, Bulaga focused on playing both left and right tackle.

Sure enough, he started at right tackle in Week 5 and has been in the lineup ever since. Bulaga’s biggest test came last weekend, when the Bears had All-Pro Julius Peppers line up against him on several occasions. Bulaga — despite those short arms — kept Peppers in check, managing to not give up a sack or commit a penalty in the NFC Championship Game.

He's going up against a ferocious Steelers pass rush in the Super Bowl. He's expected to hold his own.

And guess what? No one will blame the length of his damn arms if he doesn't.

4. John Kuhn, running back, Green Bay

Whenever the Packers are on the goal line or in fourth-and-short situations, you hear that bellowing noise from the crowd: “Kuuuuuuuuuuhn!”

But John Kuhn wasn’t always a fan favorite or considered one of the more reliable goal-line backs in the league. Five years ago, he was just a taxi squad player for the Steelers from tiny Shippensburg University. A local kid, he was suiting up for the hometown team, even though he was a die-hard Cowboys fanatic growing up in tiny Dover, Pa.

One of the few people in the Packers organization who actually has a Super Bowl ring, Kuhn got his from watching from the sideline, serving as a member of the 2005 Steelers practice squad in Super Bowl XL. Asked this week about the ring by the website TMRZoo.com, Kuhn explained, “It’s at home here. I keep it in the safe. I don’t look at it all that much. I was on the practice squad. I got a lot of great experiences out of it, and it was a tremendous time, a great week. But I’ve always told myself I wanted to get on an active roster and win one on the field.”

In one of the ironic twists of this Super Bowl, he’ll get that shot against his former team. And he’ll do so in the home stadium of the team he cheered for as a kid.

Things certainly have worked out well for Kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhn. He's just one win away from them being great.

3. Kevin Greene, outside linebackers coach, Green Bay

Though Green Bay defensive coordinator Dom Capers once served that same role in Pittsburgh, and assistants Tom Clements and Darren Perry have connections to the black and yellow, perhaps no one in the Packers organization has more ties to the Steelers than the energetic, long-haired outside linebackers coach. Greene was the star of the Steelers’ defense from 1993 to '95, a three-time Pro Bowl selection for Pittsburgh and, to this day, considered one of the franchise's best pass rushers.

Known for his intensity as a player, Greene left the Steelers after their loss to the Cowboys in Super Bowl XXX and joined Carolina. He helped lead the Panthers to a surprise NFC Championship Game appearance in just their second year in the league but, after a contract dispute, left for a stint with San Francisco and retired shortly thereafter.

However, in between his Pittsburgh days and his retirement in 1999, Greene had a greatly hyped, albeit short, professional wrestling career in the WCW. He teamed with fellow former NFL star Steve McMichael, only to turn on his mate to join the Four Horsemen. Heady stuff, here, I know. Kevin Greene — one of the few men in the world who went head to head with Anthony Munoz and Arn Anderson.

The wrestling days were short-lived, though, and for many years, we didn't hear much from Greene.

Then, during training camp in 2008, though he’d never coached at any level, he took a volunteer job and served as an intern with the Steelers’ coaching staff. Greene took to coaching like he took to playing and absorbed everything he learned like a sponge. A year later, Capers, his former coordinator in Pittsburgh, took a chance on his former star, and the Packers offered Greene a job as their outside linebackers coach.

The results? Well, have you seen Clay Matthews Jr.? He’s a spitting image of Greene, and he plays with the same intensity and spirit. In addition to Matthews, Greene has taken great pride in getting the most out of unheralded contributors such as Frank Zombo and the aforementioned Walden.

Greene will get another opportunity at a Super Bowl ring Feb. 6. And, yes, he wants this more than any championship belt.

2. Shaun Suisham, kicker, Pittsburgh

Steelers fans had gotten used to longtime kicker Jeff Reed. Sure, he was a bit outspoken, and, yes, he had crazier haircuts than the goth kids you see milling around the Hot Topic store in a suburban mall on a Friday night. And, OK, there were those Internet photos of his “stuff” (long before Favre!) and the shirtless photos of him while intoxicated.

But Reed was a Steeler. Two Super Bowl rings go a long way in the Steel City, and for all his flaws, the fans were OK with Reed as long as he kept making field goals.

After a few rough outings and the inexplicable blaming of a missed 26-yarder on the Heinz Field turf, enough was enough. Reed was 8 for 8 during the 2005 and 2008 playoffs, but he had missed 7 of 22 field-goal attempts in 2010. He finally was released in November.

His replacement? The complete and polar opposite. A quiet kid from Canada, Suisham isn’t a guy whose name (or photos) you’ll ever see pop up on Deadspin, and he’s certainly not one to pop off to the media. If anything, he’s just a good, solid field-goal kicker.

A journeyman if there ever was one, Suisham has endured two stints with the Redskins, two stints with the Cowboys, an earlier stint with the Steelers, a cup of coffee with the Browns and a four-day trial with the Rams. He tried out for the Lions in November after Jason Hanson was injured but didn’t get the gig.

Three months later, he’ll be suiting up for the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Jeff Reed, he’s not. And, trust me, many Steelers fans are more than fine with that. But when it comes to kicking in big games? The folks in Pittsburgh hope he has at least a little bit of Reed in him.

1. Flozell Adams, offensive tackle, Pittsburgh

In 12 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, Flozell Adams won just one playoff game. Released by Dallas last offseason, fresh off a disastrous 2009 NFC divisional round loss to Minnesota, Adams was unemployed and looking for work for three long months in the spring. After much deliberation and a few workouts, the Steelers, thin on the offensive line because of a series of key injuries, rolled the dice on the aging veteran and invited him to join their squad in July.

After playing left tackle his entire career in Big D, Adams moved to right tackle in the preseason. He adjusted to the change, served as the veteran voice on a very young offensive line and got better as the year went on. The high point? A dominant performance in last weekend’s AFC Championship Game. In the 24-19 win, Pittsburgh rushed for 166 yards, including 27 carries for 121 yards from running back Rashard Mendenhall.

Nine months after unceremoniously being cut by the Cowboys, Adams will be starting for the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Sure enough, it’s his first trip back to Big D.