The Miami Dolphins waited until the fourth round to bring in a young wide receiver from Abilene Christian University, Edmund Gates, who has since been getting a lot of attention from the media and fans who don't know much about.
A few weeks prior to the draft, I had a chance to sit down with Gates and talk about the draft and the teams he had worked out for during his pro day. One of the teams he had met with was a team he had grew up rooting for--the Dallas Cowboys.
While becoming a Cowboy and wearing the silver star on the helmet might have been a dream for him, Gates told me just being drafted would be a dream in itself.
On Saturday afternoon, Gates was surrounded by family and friends in Arlington, Texas when his cell phone rang. "Everybody was yelling and screaming so much I couldn't honestly tell you who was on the phone," Gates told me just 24 hours after Miami had selected him with the 111th overall pick in the NFL Draft. "But all I knew was it was the Miami Dolphins."
Earlier that same morning, around 9am local time, Gates had received a phone call from the Dolphins. What did they tell him? "They just told me to be ready," he told me. "I was like, 'alright.' "
After being drafted by Miami, he became one of the more searched names on the web. At one point he was even trending nationwide. Not bad for a young wide receiver from a small college in west Texas, right?
Since there weren't a lot of fans in the Miami area who would know a lot about Edmund Gates I decided to reach out to someone who could describe him better than even the best draft expert, ACU head head, Chris Thomsen.
"If there was one word I could use to describe Gates it would be explosive," Thomsen told me. He even compared Gates to another former ACU speedster, Johnny Knox, who was drafted by the Chicago Bears back in 2009.
The most amazing stat about Edmund Gates? During his pro day he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.34 seconds. While most wonder why that number is a big deal, keep in mind that it's the slowest Gates has ever run the 40-yard dash. And among all the wide receivers in the NFL draft who took part in the NFL combine, Gates can brag that he was the fastest of them all.
Follow Todd Kaufmann on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment