Odell Thurman

[TLusby]

If we went after him it would be due to the recommendations of our UGA players. I think we have as many Bulldogs as "U" guys.

[drowland]

Thurman is an absolute monster on the field, and would go a LONG way to fixing our defense. Who the hell wants a NICE middle linebacker anyway?

Maybe he learned his lesson being forced to sit for a season.

If he's available, he's too good to pass on. They have to look at him.

Character shmaracter.

I'll remind everyone that Mike Sellers was out of football, and part of the reason why was because he got busted with some weed in Cleveland.

Oh no! what a bad guy! We would NEVER be able to use him!

then all of a sudden Gibbs signs him. (The first player Gibbs signed when he came back, by the way,, right after hiring Gregg Williams he signed Sellers.)

Now he's one of the best Redskins we have.

for an indicator as to how little I think of Odell's brushes with the law... all of you raise your hand if you've ever been busted DWI.

Don't lie now. It's a LOT of us, isn't it? A LOT of us make a mistake or two when we're young, don't we?

do you think YOUR brush with DWI makes you a bad person, do you have bad character because of a couple of mistakes?

Come on in O'Dell. I'll pick you up from the airport if you need a ride to Redskins Park.

~Bang

It's not so much that he got a DUI, it's that he got a DUI while he was serving a suspension for substance abuse. Not very smart. And I've heard his drug problems go beyond weed and alcohol. Can you depend on a guy like that?

Obviously he'll get another a shot. People keep giving Koren Robinson second chances. Darrell Russell got 3 or 4 second chances, one by Snyder, and he never got it turned around before he was killed in a car accident.

As for Sellers, he spent two years in the CFL before he came back to the team he came up with in the first place. He had a connection here. What connection does Thurman have here?

[Bang]

It's not so much that he got a DUI, it's that he got a DUI while he was serving a suspension for substance abuse. Not very smart. And I've heard his drug problems go beyond weed and alcohol. Can you depend on a guy like that?

Obviously he'll get another a shot. People keep giving Koren Robinson second chances. Darrell Russell got 3 or 4 second chances, one by Snyder, and he never got it turned around before he was killed in a car accident.

As for Sellers, he spent two years in the CFL before he came back to the team he came up with in the first place. He had a connection here. What connection does Thurman have here?

well, talking about not very smart... let me lay this little anecdote on you regarding Odell.

Part of what I do thru my cartoons and such is some Monday Morning radio appearances on various stations around the country cracking jokes about football.

One of the stations is in Cincinatti. When O'Dell got busted the LAST time, here is the inside story I got from the guys on the air there who had spoken to one of the police before they spoke to me.

O'dell and his friends had been out drinking, and when it was time to go home, O'dell went home, and his girlfriend went home to her own place.

Well, she ran across a sobriety checkpoint and failed her test, and got busted. So she starts namedropping,,, my boyfriend and me were out, and he's O'dell Thurman, etc etc... the cops told her to call someone to come pick her up. She called O'Dell.

The cop TOLD her no, don't tell him to come down here if he's been drinking. She did anyway, and like an idiot, he drove down to the checkpoint, still drunk, to pick her up. When he pulled up on the checkpoint, he saw what it was, and tried a u-turn to get away, and was nabbed a few hundred feet down the road.

worst part, there were other players in the car that were sober and could have driven, but didn't.

O'Dell certainly is not going to be inducted into MENSA any time soon.

But he can play some MLB.

Now how true this story is I can't say. This is the word I got from the guys in Cincy.

back to his character... Bruce Smith was busted for DWI 4 times in his career, and spousal abuse twice (I think it was twice)... and he was a pretty good football player. (regardless of his time here.. he also got busted here too.. sleeping at a red light.)

As to Sellers connection,, everyone Sellers had any connection with thru the Redskins is long gone. He was here under Norv, and left when Cooke Jr. was still running the team. His connection is the same as O'Dell's. None.

He can play some football, tho.

Guys with character dont necessarily have to be choirboys.

Not saying O'dell has character. But, again, he can play some MLB, and we have a desperate need at MLB.

~Bang

[Yomar The Nifty]

There is no doubt Thurman can play, but there is also enough evidence to deduce that his issues are more deep rooted than simple youthful indiscretion... two articles, one from 2004 and one from this season:

Odell Thurman: I'm not a bad guy

By PAUL NEWBERRY

AP Sports Writer

821 words

30 September 2004

07:11 PM

Associated Press Newswires

English

© 2004. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Returning from his latest scrape with authority, Odell Thurman wants to make one thing clear: He's not a bad guy.

Thurman will be back on the field Saturday for No. 3 Georgia, having served a three-game suspension for breaking team rules. The linebacker will get a chance to make amends -- again -- in a critical Southeastern Conference game against No. 13 LSU.

"Oh man, I'm a little too excited," Thurman said, all pumped up as he came off the practice field this week. "I've got to calm myself down."

Shortly after the start of fall practice, coach Mark Richt announced that Thurman would have to sit out the first three games. To this day, neither coach nor player will discuss the reason for the suspension.

"That's between me and coach Richt," Thurman said.

This much is known: It wasn't the first disciplinary problem for Thurman, whose brilliant play on Saturdays has been tarnished by poor decisions the other days of the week.

After being redshirted in 2001, Thurman was kicked off the team for fights and other problems. While Georgia was winning its first SEC title in 20 years, he was trying to get out Richt's doghouse at Georgia Military College.

Thurman returned to the Bulldogs last year, only to get arrested two weeks before the season opener. Alcohol charges were dismissed, but he paid a $200 fine for making an improper lane change and playing music too loudly.

Richt decided not to suspend Thurman, saying he was only trying to help out family members by giving them a ride from downtown Athens. The coach imposed lighter punishment -- such as extra running -- to deal with the arrest.

Then, another setback. Thurman could only watch as the Bulldogs opened the season with three straight victories. He knows what everyone is thinking -- this guy is trouble.

"I don't mean to talk bad on the media, but they made me out to be a bad guy," Thurman said. "I don't feel I'm a bad guy."

He does feel like he's running out of chances.

"I'm not a different person, but I think it helped me," Thurman said. "I learned a lot. I don't want to make another mistake."

His teammates back him up.

"Odell is a great dude," defensive lineman Kedric Golston said. "Sure, he's made mistakes. A lot of guys have. They just didn't get caught. He's one of the better dudes on the team, to be honest. Everyone makes mistakes. Let's not hold it against him."

No one questions Thurman when he takes the field.

He exceeded all expectations for his first college season, starting 13 games at middle linebacker and making 121 tackles. He had 18 1/2 stops behind the line of scrimmage, including 6 1/2 sacks. He made The Associated Press All-SEC team.

"On the field, he's in another place," fellow linebacker Arnold Harrison said. "I never worry about Odell as long as he comes to play to the best of his ability."

Thurman's return bolsters a defense that already has David Pollack up front and Thomas Davis in the secondary -- all with the potential to be All-Americans.

"Having Odell back is big," Richt said. "He has the type of energy level that Davis and Pollack have, so now we have one of those guys on the line, at linebacker and in the defensive backfield."

Thurman's manic style isn't surprising. His heroes growing up were a pair of linebackers cut from the same mold, Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher.

"You can't be a soft guy playing middle linebacker," Thurman said. "You've got to have a little bit of craziness. You've got to be a little wild."

Thurman ditched a trait that served him well in high school. Growing up in the tiny town of Monticello, about 45 miles south of Athens, he was used to being the center of attention. He found that didn't play so well in college.

"I was the man in high school," Thurman said. "Everything revolved around me. When I came to college, I had to learn the team thing."

Of course, Thurman can't help his team if he's not on the field.

He cheered from the sideline while the Bulldogs were beating Georgia Southern and Marshall. When his teammates traveled to South Carolina, he went back home to watch the game on television with his grandmother and 2-year-old son, Odalyus.

"It went by fast, to be honest," Thurman said. "At first, I thought those three games would never be over."

Now that the suspension is over, he's eager to move on.

"It's behind me now," Thurman said. "This puts it in the trunk.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

'Coach Lewis is fed up'

Kevin Goheen

Post staff reporter

841 words

28 September 2006

The Cincinnati Post

Cincinnati

B1.0

English

© 2006 Cincinnati Post. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved.

Odell Thurman's name no longer appears above a locker in Paul Brown Stadium. Its contents have been cleared out and replaced with those of Kyle Takavitz, an offensive lineman on the practice squad. The change was noticeable.

Thurman's arrest early Monday morning for operating a vehicle under the influence led to Wednesday's announcement that the NFL had extended the second-year linebacker's suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy from four games to an entire year. Thurman was due to come off of suspension after Sunday's game with the New England Patriots at Paul Brown Stadium, but now he will have to wait until next year to apply for reinstatement.

Even if his application is approved and he is allowed to play in 2007, that won't mean Thurman will be playing in Cincinnati.

"We've told him he's not to be around here," head coach Marvin Lewis said. "We cleaned out his locker. Players don't clean out their lockers. It's not their job."

In a calendar year that has seen six players arrested for various charges -- some upheld, some pending and some dismissed -- the Bengals have managed to keep focus on their job of winning football games the first three games of this season. The sight of Lewis having Thurman's locker cleared was as powerful a message as any words he could have spoken.

"Coach Lewis is fed up with harping on Odell about doing the right thing at the right time and not being at the wrong place at the wrong time," said quarterback Carson Palmer. "At some point, I think Marvin's done with it. I saw him clear out his locker. I think everybody saw that and realized at some point you're not going to get a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance."

With the Patriots, winners of three Super Bowls titles this decade, coming to town the Bengals have no room not to be focused. New England is coming off a 17-7 loss against Denver Sunday night but has not lost consecutive games since the end of the 2002 season. The Bengals beat Pittsburgh 28-20 on the road and have a chance to go 4-0 for the second straight season.

"I feel like we're 3-0, we've got a big game this week, and nothing seems to unnerve us as a team," said defensive tackle John Thornton. "We've had a lot of injuries that we're going through and we just beat a good team. But I don't think anything distracts us at all."

Legal troubles haven't been the only potential distractions facing Lewis and his players this year. Palmer's knee injury, surgery and subsequent rehabilitation were among the most watched storylines of the NFL offseason. The Bengals have extended the contracts of three of their five starters on the offensive line, but the prospect of losing guard Eric Steinbach to free agency looms. And as every team must deal with, the Bengals have had their share of injuries, including losing linebacker David Pollack for the season with a fractured vertebra in his neck against Cleveland two weeks ago.

"Any time you have a large group of people together, you're always going to have somebody with something off of what the entire team is trying to focus on," said New England head coach Bill Belichick, who is 75-35 and won four AFC East titles with New England since taking over in 2000. "It's challenging every week. There are things every week that come up time to time, injuries or schedule related, that's something you have to deal with every week, it's part of football, every team. You try to minimize those things and focus on the game.

"There are things each of us individually have to manage, those are things that happen. I went through it last year with (the death of) my dad. It's a combination of things. You're always going to have an element of that when you have a large group together."

Some issues bring more difficult challenges to deal with than others. Injuries are part of the game and so are contracts. A player being suspended for breaking league rules falls into a different category. It's up to the head coach to keep his team on track.

"(Lewis) addressed the off-field issues, and that's all I'm going to comment on the subject," said defensive tackle Bryan Robinson. "We as players don't need to reiterate it, we have a leader in Marvin and he pretty much set the tone with what was said."

[Fury010]

Maybe we can room him with Brandon Lloyd during training camp!!!