Posted by ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas
When I think of Mike Alstott, two things always come to mind. I had the good fortune to cover Alstott's first three seasons with the Bucs when I worked for The Tampa Tribune.
The first thing that struck me was Alstott's power running and physical style. The guy was a moose and his feet may have made him the final fullback to really have much impact as a runner. Fullbacks today just block.
I'll be thinking about Alsott dragging defenders on Sunday when the Bucs honor the recently-retired fullback at halftime of the game with Seattle.
The second thing about Alstott is a lesson I think about every year when the draft comes around and people start talking about 40-yard-dash times, vertical leaping ability and potential.
I was sitting in Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay's office one day during the 1997 season when Tony Dungy's Bucs were just starting to get good. I was working on a story about how the Bucs had used the draft to build this team. We started to talk about Alstott and McKay made a comment that floored me and, then, made me realize how brilliant it was in its simplicity.
I wasn't able to find the exact McKay quote because it came well before everything got saved forever on the web. But I'm sure it was something close to this.
"When we drafted Mike Alsott, we drafted a guy with absolutely no potential,'' McKay said. "We knew he wasn't going to get any better than he was. But he was already a very good football player and that was good enough for us.''
Moral of the story: Take the guy that's the good football player over the guy who is just an athlete. The football player has produced. The other guy just has potential. Production should be more important than potential.
Yasinskas joined ESPN.com in January 2008 after covering the Carolina Panthers for The Charlotte Observer for nine seasons. He began his journalism career with The Tampa Tribune in 1990.
