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Strange but true fantasy football stories

By Bob Harris, Special to SI.com

The 2003 season is upon us. As in right now. As in your Week 1 lineups have been submitted. And by golly, it's on!

But there's a problem. Tonight's game won't last more than three hours and when it's over, countless Fantasy owners around the world will find themselves in limbo. The Jets-Redskins tilt results in an obvious and very awkward pause for the average Fantasy owner.

Which makes this an ideal time to break out with another revival of my favorite childhood reading material; a series of anthologies by Zander Hollander published under the title Strange But True Football Stories.

If nothing else, a little light reading will help occupy the time between tonight's final whistle and Sunday morning's first opening kickoff. Without further delay, here's my latest collection of Strange But True Fantasy Football Stories.

For a nickel, I will

Drafted by New England with the seventh pick of the 1996 draft -- against the wishes of then (and now)-head coach Bill Parcells -- Terry Glenn missed all of camp and the team's first regular season game with a hamstring injury. In fact, his inability -- or unwillingness -- to hit the practice field that summer is what prompted Parcells to refer to Glenn as "she" during a press conference.

Nevertheless, Glenn came on strong over the remainder of the '96 season and his NFL rookie record 90 catches were a major reason the Pats made it to the Super Bowl.

The next three seasons were marred by a series of injuries that kept him emerging as a consistent threat.

Glenn wasn't on the field for even half the team's offensive plays in 1997 when ankle, eye, hamstring and shoulder injuries limited him to 27 catches. Even though he managed to pull in 50 passes in '98, injuries still limited him to appearing in just 10 games.

That was also the year Glenn began to behave. Well, let's just say he began to behave strangely at times.

According to published reports, Glenn retreated to his house for two weeks after breaking his ankle at St. Louis on Dec. 13, refusing to undergo surgery. In fact, Glenn only agreed to the procedure after team trainers came to his house -- and talking to him through his closed bedroom door -- told him he'd be fined $10,000 for every day he refused to go under the knife.

The good news? Perhaps working under Parcells will once again bring out the best in her.

Boy Wonderlic

St. Louis rookie receiver Kevin Curtis hoped his ability to score well on tests would help him earn a roster spot with the Rams. And by golly, he must have done something right because, despite a fractured leg that will sideline him at least a month, Curtis is still on the squad.

Curtis, the Rams' third-round draft choice from Utah State, would like to think his intelligence translates to success on the field.

"Let's hope so," Curtis said with a grin.

Curtis, a 5-foot-11, 186-pound receiver who runs a 4.3 in the 40, scored a 48 on the Wonderlic test, the highest score reported among this year's incoming crop of rookie talent. Curtis said he answered 49 of 50 possible questions in the 12-minute time limit when the intelligence test was administered at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.

"Hopefully, those tests help me pick up the offense a little quicker," Curtis said.

It certainly can't hurt.

For the record, the average person reportedly scores a 21 on the Wonderlic; a score of 10 represents basic literacy. According to those who created the test, professional executives average 28.

In the NFL, linemen have the highest average score, about 26. Running backs average 16, the lowest. Teams want quarterbacks to score in the mid-20s and a score in the mid-teens is generally acceptable for the other positions.

Former Bengals punter Pat McInally, a Harvard graduate, is believed to be the only player to score a perfect 50.

According to reports, Dan Marino scored a 16, which some believe contributed to him being the sixth quarterback selected in the first round of the 1983 Draft. Former Notre Dame signal caller Rick Mirer, a failure in the NFL, scored a 31.

Don't go away mad

Talk about burning your bridges. In an offseason interview with Sports Illustrated writer Michael Silver, Kyle Turley, acquired by St. Louis in a trade with New Orleans, didn't just blast his former employers; he verbally ripped the helmet off their collective head.

In addition to calling Saints head coach Jim Haslett a "two-faced backstabber," Turley told Silver that general manager Mickey Loomis knew nothing about football. Turley also claimed that Saints owner Tom Benson took advantage of him when he bought a Mercedes-Benz from Benson's car dealership as a rookie.

To which Loomis responded: "I don't really give a damn about Kyle Turley. He's the Rams' problem now."

"They tell me that 10 percent of the population is miserable and unhappy all the time, and Kyle definitely falls in that 10 percent," Haslett said in an e-mail to Silver. "The vast majority of our players wanted to see him go."

Sure, coach. I bet none of them liked Ricky Williams or what he brought the team either?

How the mighty have fallen

After drafting him with the third pick overall in 1998, the Cincinnati Bengals handed Akili Smith a $10.8 million signing bonus; four years later, the Green Bay Packers signed Smith to a free-agent contract that included $15,000 in cash up front. He was subsequently released.

A Wolf in sheep's clothing?

As Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Rick Braun suggested earlier this year, former Green Bay Packers general manager Ron Wolf made one of the great trades in NFL history in February 1992 when he sent a first-round pick to Atlanta for third-stringer Brett Favre.

But perhaps his most memorable move -- at least in the eyes of current Fantasy owners -- was the way he bilked former Green Bay head coach Mike Holmgren out star running back Ahman Green, as lopsided a trade as we've seen since Minnesota's Mike Lynn dealt for Herschel Walker in 1989.

It was a far worse blunder than any his former boss Wolf ever committed in pulling off any of the 87 trades that he made during a decade running the Packers.

In fact, Wolf said Green was the second-best player trade that he ever made. The first, of course, was acquiring Favre.

Sure, Green fumbled in Seattle, and Holmgren despised fumblers. So Holmgren dealt Green to the Packers the day before the draft in 2000 for Fred Vinson, a cornerback who was expected to plug a major need. Holmgren threw in a fifth-round pick, and Wolf tossed in a sixth.

We'll never know for sure about Vinson, the Packers' second-round draft choice in 1999. He ripped up a knee during a mini-camp two months after the trade, blew it out again 10 months later and probably won't play again.

It was difficult to evaluate Vinson because of the torn ligament in his foot that wasn't right for his entire rookie season. Vinson had speed, smarts and some pure cover skills, but he also lacked confidence and strength, played timidly and wasn't overly dependable.

It isn't known what Holmgren was told about Vinson by Ted Thompson, who scouted for the Packers in 1999 before joining the Seahawks as a vice president in January 2000. Ultimately it was Holmgren who zeroed in on Vinson and made the deal.

Wolf was at the Cornhuskers indoor workout facility in March 1998 when Green ran for scouts and his watch stopped at 4.19 seconds. He now says that it was the fastest 40-yard dash that he ever timed.

Intrigued by his speed, tremendous three-year production in college and relative youth, Wolf remained curious from afar why Green lasted until the third round and didn't do much in his first two years.

Shortly after the '99 season, Wolf and Thompson had several conversations in which Wolf made it known that Vinson was available. Seeking a running back or tight end, the Packers were told that both Green and Itula Mili could be had.

Even though members of Ray Rhodes' staff believed Vinson eventually would become a better player than fellow rookies Antuan Edwards and Mike McKenzie, Wolf was convinced in his own mind that Vinson wasn't physical enough.

Hearing Mike Sherman, who served as Holmgren's offensive coordinator in Seattle before taking over as Green Bay's head coach after Rhodes was fired, tell him that there wasn't anything wrong with Green and that his fumbling wasn't going to be a problem was important to Wolf because he would have hated to present his new coach with a player that he really didn't want.

But Wolf had such concrete convictions about both Green and Vinson that the deal probably would have been made anyway.

"Am I glad I made the deal for Ahman Green?" Wolf said. "You betchum. I'm delighted because I knew Fred Vinson couldn't play and I had to get rid of him, and I got a guy I thought could play. He has a chance now to be an all-pro guy."

Although having the strong suspicion that Green would be special, Wolf admits now that he didn't quite see this coming.

Wolf and Holmgren haven't spoken in a while but Wolf describes their relationship as "very good."

Asked if the Green deal safely can be categorized as a swindle or a heist.

"It is that, yup," Wolf replied. "But I'm not one that puts notches on his belt like an old gunfighter. That's one that worked. There's a lot that didn't work.

"[Holmgren] probably thought the guy would never amount to a hill of beans. There are guys all over the place that couldn't play for one team but can play for another."

Of course, that's much easier when the other team is willing to help the player in question work through a minor weakness or two -- something Wolf has done on a regular basis throughout what will almost certainly be a Hall of Fame front office career.

In fact, Favre might actually be the best example of that willingness. You see, not many people outside the Green Bay organization know that Favre actually failed his physical exam with the Packers. Apparently team doctors feared a hip problem might be degenerative and refused to pass him.

Fortunately, Wolf had the right to overrule the opinion of his medical staff and he did precisely that.

Gambling that Favre was worth the investment and the possible financial exposure if his hip problem prematurely ended the quarterback's career, he opted to pass him on the physical.

And as they say, the rest is history. It also makes for fine ending to this edition of "Strange But True Fantasy Football Stories."

Bob Harris is Editor and Webmaster of the TFL Report and Senior Editor for Fantasy Sports Publications.