CHARLOTTE -- It was June. NFL teams had generally formed their rosters and were beginning to cut players in advance of training camp as they signed their draft picks. It was also a time where Rob Petitti didn't know what was next.
Nearly a year had passed since he'd torn his Achilles tendon while in camp with the St. Louis Rams. The season that followed was a disaster; they finished 2-14 and changed head coaches twice. The team was about to rebuild; Petitti, who had played in five games in 2007 before the injury (with one start) was not in their plans.
"I wasn't sure if I was going to play or not," Petitti said.
Then his phone rang.
"One of my friends called and said, 'You got drafted.' I said, 'Drafted into what? The Army?' He said, 'The UFL.' I was like, 'What's the UFL?'"
"UFL" stood for "United Football League," a four-team, six-game circuit that made its debut this fall. The Florida Tuskers drafted him; not coincidentally, their coach was Jim Haslett, an assistant with the Rams when Petitti joined them in 2007 and then their head coach for the final 12 games of the following season.
"I'd heard of it, but I didn't know there was going to be a draft," Petitti said. "So Haslett calls me and said, 'You want to play?' and I said, 'Absolutely.'"
Petitti didn't merely want to play; he needed to.
"I needed to play all six of those games to prove myself -- especially with my injury," Petitti said. "I couldn't just play a couple of those games and get signed. I had to consistently show I could still play.
"I don't think I'd have been able to come back from that without a league like that. It's pretty much the same. Everyone comes into the (NFL) and says, 'It gets a little faster,' but our team was ex-NFL guys, eight-year players. It was a little more relaxed, with not as much pressure as the NFL -- and we had no fans."
That was a tad different from Petitti's previous season as a full-time starter: his rookie campaign with the Dallas Cowboys in 2005, when he went from sixth-round pick to 16-game starter who didn't miss a snap all season. But his descent was as rapid as his rise, and then-Cowboys coach Bill Parcells released him at the end of the following preseason.
"He (Parcells) said I was one of the hardest workers," Petitti recalled. I think maybe he thought I wasn't developing or wasn't as improved as he wanted me to be. If I disagree or agree, it doesn't matter.
"It's something I still don't know," he added. "I was a hard-working player, and it just didn't work out for me. My rookie year was tough at times; I struggled. Then I worked hard and they brought some more guys in. I thought I deserved to be on the team, but I wasn't."
The whistle-stop began, and Petitti's path wound to the Saints, the Rams, and then to the start-up league before the Panthers called in the wake of
"I've been everywhere," Petitti said. "I feel like this is the best shape I've been in. I worked real hard to come back from my Achilles. You don't take football for granted. Once you get hurt, you feel like this could be it."
And this time, Petitti feels he's best prepared to maximize his chance -- knowing that it could be the last one.
"I wasn't as mature a player then (with the Cowboys) as I am now," Petitti said. "I never got in trouble; I wasn't doing bad things, but I wasn't doing everything I probably should have been doing in (Parcells's) eyes. He goes by the book. Now, in my fifth season, I understand more of what it takes to be a professional."
MOURNING A FELLOW PLAYER: The death of Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry hit all NFL locker rooms like an earthquake Thursday.
"It's a very tragic situation, obviously," wide receiver
Even for players who didn't know Henry -- as was the case with Muhammad -- the news was rattling, because virtually every player knows someone who knew Henry well. That's fairly typical of the NFL, which in a way is like a small town. Even in the offseason, when teams are allowed 80 players on their roster, its player population is 3,560. In a group that small, connections are rampant.
"We all typically have relationships across the teams and look out for each other and generally care about each other past the rivalries and the nature of the competition," wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad said. "There's a general brotherhood among the players."
Practice-squad linebacker
"I'm sorry to hear about his life ending so early," Ivy said. "I hung out with him a lot of times, just playing ball or relaxing and getting to know each other."
SPLIT SECONDS: Running back
