National Football League

Road to NFL has been rocky, but 'Little Todd' ready to make an impact for Rams

Published May. 1, 2015 8:58 p.m. ET

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ST. LOUIS -- While Georgia tailback Todd Gurley lay sprawled out on the field late in the fourth quarter of a blowout win against Auburn last November, his parents, Todd Gurley and Darlene Simmons, were trying to deal with what they'd just seen.

"Sitting there, watching our son get injured like that ... I love football, but my aspect was, 'Why would you put him in?'" his father begins. His son was one carry away from tying his career high for a single game, but to his upset father, it still didn't feel like it was necessary for him to be on the field at that point, given the Bulldogs' lopsided advantage.

Though he appreciates everything the University of Georgia did for his son, the elder Gurley admits he was "kind of" peeved at the season-ending decision.

"But it's part of football," he adds philosophically. "Injuries are part of life, period. You've gotta learn to deal with it, and overcome it."

"I just went straight into prayer," says Simmons, "and just wanted Todd to know that, whatever you're feeling, you've gotta get it out. Don't think negative, because you can't heal. You just trust in the Lord, and he'll take care of you, 'cause He knows the reason for all of this."

Still, an ACL injury near the end of his junior season -- just before he declared for the NFL Draft -- was a tough break for a kid who knew he wanted to play in the league since he was 5 or 6. At that time, he was the smallest kid on his Pop Warner team in Maryland. The others used to call him "Little Todd."

Now, when someone from his past calls the 6-foot-1, 226-pound Gurley that, the inflection is slightly different.

"They'll be like, Little Todd?!" Simmons says.

Gurley, meanwhile, is charmingly honest about his scoring acumen from those early days, where, as his dad tells it, they'd hand Little Todd the ball and he'd start running down the sideline.

"(I) would score at will," the younger Gurley confesses.

After a stellar high school career and a blazing start at Georgia -- he was only the second true freshman in school history to break the 1,000-yard rushing mark -- Gurley hit a few speed bumps. There was the ankle injury against LSU his sophomore year, which caused him to miss three full games. Then there was the four-game suspension during his final year -- "very difficult," he admits -- for taking upward of $3,000 to autograph memorabilia. He was playing his first game back when that ACL injury occurred, ending an impressive collegiate career that saw him reach 44 career touchdowns and eclipse the 100-yard rushing mark 18 times.

Gurley has been working his way back to the field ever since.  His family, including his siblings, has supported him throughout the process. Darlene is always calling.

One of the things rehabbing taught Gurley was patience.

"Just because you can't do something one day doesn't mean it's not going to come the next day," he says. "You've just got to keep working at it and try not to be frustrated."

That attitude carried him all the way to this Friday where, flanked by Rams coach Jeff Fisher and general manager Les Snead, Gurley had his first press conference after being selected -- injury and all -- 10th overall the night before. The 20-year-old tried to put into words the whirlwind of the past 24 hours after he got the call -- the hour-and-a-half of media interviews he did in Chicago following the selection, the packing, the two or so hours of sleep he'd managed to nab overnight.

On Thursday, dressed in a gray suit and a dark blue tie, he'd sat in the NFL green room in Chicago, trying to stay relaxed. He cracked a couple jokes as he waited for a call.

"Got a good joke?" Snead asked, when Gurley mentioned the situation during his press conference Friday.

"Well, when I was in the green room, I had my phone on me and I was like, 'Dang, man, maybe I've got bad service in here, 'cause there's no team calling me right now," Gurley quipped.

Someone actually did end up calling from back home while he was in the green room, and Gurley was not happy with the person's timing. But it all worked out in the end. The Rams eventually called and Gurley went 10th overall, the first running back to go off the board in Round 1 since 2012. He arrived in St. Louis the following morning and met with Reggie Scott, the team's head trainer.

The Rams are willing to give Gurley as much time as he needs to get back on the field. Fisher sold him Thursday as "the running back of our future," explaining that it didn't make sense to rush the rehab process, given the team's lofty hope for his career long-term.

"The athletic ability, the strength, the explosion, the acceleration, the instincts that he has as a runner, and he's also got great hands out of the backfield," Fisher says. "He's that complete back."

You can follow Elisabeth Meinecke on Twitter at @lismeinecke or email her at ecmeinecke@gmail.com.

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