Richard: A rookie free agent success story
Del Rio hopes to cash in with other players at this year’s rookie tryouts
ALAMEDA — Jalen Richard has the screen shot of an e-mail saved on his phone. It’s never getting deleted.
He’s thinking of sending it off to get printed. He’ll frame it and toss it on the wall of his man cave — once he has one.
It contains flight information from last May. A 4:05 p.m. departure from Oakland, connect- ing in Las Vegas before landing in New Orleans. This was his return trip home after spending the weekend in Alameda on a rookie tryout with the Raiders.
“They had me flying in and flying out,” Richard said as he sat down this week to reflect on that experience, “but I never flew out.”
Instead, Richard was one of five players the Raiders signed out of the tryout. Defensive lineman Branden Jackson, a lateseason call-up from the practice squad, was the only other one to eventually make a 53-man roster.
This weekend and next, NFL hopefuls will flock to facilities across the league hoping to live out their dream.
The Raiders’ rookie minicamp runs Friday through Sunday. While there’s an obvious focus on seeing first-round pick Gareon Conley hit the practice field for the first time, journeys such as Richard’s have become a major source of general manager Reggie McKenzie’s rosterbuilding process.
It’s an aspect coach Jack Del Rio also embraces.
“Collect good players. That’s what you’re all about,” Del Rio said. “I think you always fill in with other guys that have an opportunity to compete and create roles for themselves and what--
ever they make, it becomes.
“Jalen Richard is a great example of that last year. We let a young man come in and compete. He earned his way. We got even more than we thought we were getting in a free agent.”
Richard’s rookie year was a revelation. The first handoff he took in a regular-season game went for a 75-yard touchdown, breaking the record for longest run on a player’s first NFL carry. He brought a longabsent element of explosion to the Raiders return game, a spark as a member of a three-headed backfield and may have been the team’s best rookie.
A year ago at this time, nobody would’ve predicted that.
Twenty-two running backs were selected in the NFL draft, yet the undrafted Richard finished fifth in the league among rookies in rushing. He had less than half as many carries as any of the four ahead of him.
Richard, with nearly 1,400 yards from scrimmage and 16 touchdowns as a senior at Southern Miss, thought he had a chance to be a late-round draft pick, or at least a priority free agent. That would come with a signing bonus and an invitation to training camp.
“I didn’t have the best pro day that I wanted,” Richard said. “We had some conditions. It was in the rain. That’s no excuse. But I did have the film. I thought that would be enough.”
Instead, as he suffered through Day 3 of the draft, he never heard his name called and nobody wanted to pull the trigger on signing him. He received one offer: come to Alameda to try out for the Raiders.
“That day, I had a lot of emotions,” he said. “I was really kind of mad about the situation, but with the support of my family and friends and my agents, I kind of reversed the emotions and made them positives.”
He was handed a No. 32 jersey and put to work on a team that sent running back Latavius Murray to the Pro Bowl the year before and used a fifth-round pick on DeAndre Washington.
As he’s known to do, Richard impressed immediately. When the third and final day of the minicamp wrapped up, Richard shook Del Rio’s hand as he left the field and thanked him for the opportunity.
A few words and a glimmer in Del Rio’s eyes told him good news was coming, and he immediately called his dad James back in Louisiana. Pops wasn’t surprised.
“When he’s healthy, I’ll put him up against anybody, because he was that well-rounded kid,” James Richard said. “To me, he was the closest thing to Marshall Faulk that I ever saw because he was in that mold. Intellectually, he just understands the game.”
John Simon, Richard’s running backs coach at Southern Miss, also raves about his smarts. Simon, who now coaches at Arizona State, understands Richard’s path too.
Simon went undrafted as a running back out of Louisiana Tech in 2002 and signed with the Tennessee Titans with zero dollars guaranteed. He made the roster and even scored his first NFL touchdown in a Week 4 game against the Raiders at the Coliseum.
“I’ve been where Jalen is and I knew there was a possibility he was going to have to take that route, so as I coached him in college, I prepared him for what he was going to have to expect,” Simon said. “There’s a ton of 5-8, 200-pound guys that can run a 4.5, but understanding spacing, understanding d-line play, understanding blocking schemes, now you’re talking about a whole different arsenal that’s going to give you an advantage.”
Getting on a 90-man roster is a thrill, but also a grind. For a player like Richard without a signing bonus, he’s got his room and board taken care of at a local hotel and a small daily stipend but that’s about it. He rarely left the facility without taking an extra meal to go.
Once training camp finally arrived in late July, there’s a weekly stipend for first-year players of $1,000 (it increases to $1,075 this year and veterans earn a bit more), but he was stashing away most of the money he received to cover bills back home. He was still in a hotel until Week 2 of the season when he finally got his first game check. (So yes, the player who raced for that 75-yard touchdown was living in a hotel).
Richard continued to impress coaches and teammates alike in the first couple of weeks in Napa but as the first preseason game neared, a minor knee injury sidelined him for two weeks. While frustrated, Richard leans on his faith in times like these.
“This is just adversity,” Richard said. “God isn’t going to put you through nothing you can’t get through. He’s just sitting you down telling you to chill for a little bit. That’s how I look at any injury. ‘You’ve been balling too hard on these boys, let me sit you down.’ That’s what I was telling myself.”
Richard’s no stranger to adversity. He missed his senior year of high school after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament the summer before. Doctors told his dad it was probably already partially torn but his high pain tolerance prevented him from knowing.
At Southern Miss, the Golden Eagles lost the first 21 games of his career before getting a win the final game of his sophomore season — which he missed with an injury. He finally was on the field for one win during his injury-plagued junior year, then experienced a nine-win senior season. But he had to sit out Southern Miss’ bowl game with a shoulder injury that he wanted healed in time to prepare for the draft.
This knee injury healed quickly, though, and Richard picked up where he left off at camp and earned his way on to the 53-man roster, even if the Raiders made him sweat it.
“Nobody told me,” said Richard, who sat staring at the clock in the team lounge until it hit the 2 p.m. deadline to announce cuts. “They let me kind of feel that little drop in my stomach.”
His debut a week later won’t soon be forgotten. The native of Alexandria, Louisiana, had never set foot in the Superdome in New Orleans, but he was heading there for his debut. Friends and family packed the house and saw him catch a pass and return a punt.
In the fourth quarter, he finally got his first carry. With a little stutter move at the line of scrimmage and a broken tackle in the secondary, Richard was off to the races with the recordsetting touchdown.
“When he breaks out, everybody is jumping up,” James Richard said. “That stadium was so loud. It was so weird. It sounded like the Saints were scoring.”
The moment was a perfect reward for all that Richard went through to make it to the NFL, but it’s not the finish line. He carries that undrafted edge with him and his story should serve as an inspiration for any rookie — drafted or otherwise — looking to make a name.
Richard expects the Raiders will ask him to speak when they hold their rookie symposium and he’s happy to share his journey.