The Nfl

Last Chance?
Dimitrius Underwood is getting a fresh start with the Cowboys

On a white-hot Texas afternoon in Wichita Falls last week, the star-crossed career of 300-pound defensive end Dimitrius Underwood took a turn for the better. In a drill on the second day of Cowboys training camp, Underwood smashed into 277-pound tight end Mike Lucky, bull-rushed him sideways and threw him aside just in time to stop running back Chris Warren for no gain. This was the play of a seasoned, confident player, not someone who'd never played an NFL game—and certainly not of a man who a year ago went AWOL in camp, was released by his first NFL team, apparently tried to kill himself after another club gave him a chance and then began treatment for bipolar disorder.

"You see that?" shouted assistant defensive line coach Jim Jeffcoat, jumping into the middle of the action. "He base-blocked [the tight end], held his ground and made the play. That's the way you play off a block!"

Underwood, the second player with bipolar disorder that Dallas has signed in the past year (the other, defensive tackle Alonzo Spellman, earned a starting job last season), has lost 40 pounds since joining the team in March. His performance in Dallas's off-season workout program, minicamps and early camp practices so impressed club brass that one of the four men who will have a big say in roster decisions said last week, "Gun to my head, I think he'll make the team."

Selected by the Vikings at No. 29 in the first round of the 1999 draft despite a lackluster career at Michigan State, Underwood attended one day of training camp last summer before bolting. He disappeared for almost a week, then surfaced in Philadelphia and announced that he was done with football. The Dolphins talked him out of retirement in August, but after injuring his shoulder in a preseason game, Underwood was never activated. Then on a bye-week trip to Lansing, Mich., in September he knifed himself in the neck. Miami released him in December.

Underwood seemed unlikely to be heard from in NFL circles again, until family members reached out to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in March. "They liked how we handled Alonzo's situation, and they asked me if we'd give him a chance," recalls Jones. "So I met Dimitrius and his brother in Philadelphia. I could sense he wanted to play football."

According to one team official, doctors in Dallas found the right medication to treat the bipolar disorder, an affliction that is characterized by episodes of mania and depression. At first the medication made Underwood groggy, and he didn't want to take it, the source says. But Underwood was persuaded to see he needed the prescribed dosage.

"He's come to grips with who he is and the condition he has," says defensive line coach Andre Patterson, who held the same position—and worked with Underwood, however briefly—in Minnesota last year. Underwood understands where he stands. "Being the last of the litter doesn't bother me," Underwood, who refused to discuss his bizarre past, said last week. "I'm happy. I took a little hiatus from the game, but now I'm determined to make this work."

If it does, give an assist to Spellman, 28, whose bipolar disorder reportedly led him to threaten to commit suicide after holing up in a friend's house in March 1998. The Cowboys reward their senior players with single rooms on the top floor of the players' dorm at their Midwestern State camp. Spellman, by virtue of his seven-year NFL tenure, had earned a single. But coach Dave Campo asked him if he would give up the single to room with and mentor Underwood. Spellman agreed. "It's going good," says Spellman. "Jesus takes care of both of us."

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