The Next Vince Papale Story?

Most of you don't remember Vince Papale, and there really isn't any reason you should unless, of course, you were a Philadelphia Eagles' fan during the Dick Vermeil era. Papale was a back-up wide receiver, but his claim to fame was that he was a Philadelphia native who had played semi-pro ball (perhaps for the Frankford Yellow Jackets, who, a long time ago, were in the first tier of professional football), who didn't play football in college because his college (St. Joe's University) didn't have a football team, and who had worked construction for a time. He was the real Philadelphia guy, Rocky in a football uniform. He got more press than his play or playing time warranted, but he helped form the character of a gritty Super Bowl team.

The modern-day Papale for this Philadelphia Eagles team probably is Jeff Thomason. If you ask, "who on earth is Jeff Thomason?" and you are a diehard Eagles fan, you'd still have a point. After all, Thomason has been out of football for a few years, last playing with the Bengals (he played a few seasons with the Eagles; his last was in 2002). If you said, "hey, wait a minute, he's not even on the Eagles' roster," you'd still have a point, at least until now.

You'd be right if you said that during the Atlanta game the Eagles had three tight ends on the roster, Chad Lewis, L.J. Smith and Mike Bartrum, who is also the Birds' long-snapper. As you know, Lewis hurt his foot badly in the Falcons game, needs surgery and will miss the Super Bowl. The Eagles need a third tight end, and Andy Reid indicated yesterday that they were going to sign one.

Enter Jeff Thomason. His current job -- managing a construction site for Toll Brothers in New Jersey. Is he in shape? Read the article that I've linked to. Apparently he is.

For Thomason, this is a great story, and my guess is that at least internally Toll Brothers will milk this for all that it's worth, under the category, "See what our employees do with their leaves of absence?" In a sense, he's the latest Rocky, or, perhaps, just an unemployed football player who won the ultimate lottery -- getting a chance to go to the Super Bowl.

For many football players, the transition from professional football to the real working world is a difficult one. The problems of many former players have been well chronicled publicly, and when interviewed, almost all, if not all, former players say that they'd play again in a heartbeat if they could. How many of them watch the games on Sundays chomping at the bit to get out there, only to know that their age or health prevents them from doing so. How many would just love to play that one more game, make that one big hit, catch that one big pass?

Most of them, I think.

And now Jeff Thomason is carrying the flag for all of those former football players everywhere. The ex-player who gets that one more chance to shine, and, this time, on the ultimate stage.

He just has to be careful that he remains a good story. You'll recall several years ago, the Giants had a playoff against the 49ers, and their regular long-snapper was hurt. They signed 35 year-old Trey Junkin, the one-time TE out of Duke who had long-snapped for more than ten years in his career (but who had been out of football), and his bad long-snaps help cost the Giants the playoff game (it also didn't help that their defense suffered one of the all-time collapses in NFL history). Still, to this day, Trey Junkin will not be remembered for his long career, but for his problematic long snaps in a key game.

Andy Warhol spoke of people getting their fifteen minutes of fame. For Jeff Thomason, it will be about 15 days worth (and he won't be long-snapping, as Bartrum still holds that job).

Little did Jeff Thomason know that when he was watching the Eagles play the Falcons on TV on Sunday, that he would be flying with them two days later.

As the ultimate wingman.