NASHVILLE -- One NFL pecking order emphasizes that the bigger the college, the higher the player drafted, the loftier his status. The greater his reward. The deeper his respect.
Joyfully, unexpectedly, players like Tennessee's Cortland Finnegan arise, creating new order and fresh perceptions.
Career statistics:
Tackles: 180
Interceptions: 5
Sacks: 3
A renewed hope for the overlooked. The obscure.
You may already know about this cornerback from Milton, Fla., with the bushy hair and the buzzing playing style that has vaulted him into the league lead in interceptions with four. The Vikings catch a look on Sunday here when they clash with the Titans. Many around the league, however, have already collided with this seventh-round pick from the 2006 draft, the 215th player selected.
Heck, only 255 players total were drafted that year.
Finnegan, 24, snuck in from Samford University, a Division I-AA school in Birmingham, Ala. Once he got a foot in the door, he used the other one to kick it wide open. He dared to dream a dream and he was willing to pay the price to make it come true.
Only 35 games and 21 starts into his professional career, Finnegan is earning the type of respect often reserved for the tip of that traditional NFL pecking order.
"It's the way I dreamed about it," Finnegan said. "I'm getting to live that dream in reality, getting to live it out. It is one of the most humbling things …"
He said his mind was flashing from Fayetteville, S.C., where he was born, to Milton, where he grew up, to Samford to Nashville. How he got here. How he worked on the inside so that everyone can now see a glowing product.
One of his teammates, linebacker Keith Bulluck, said of Finnegan: "He is a fighter. Since he arrived, he's accepted every challenge brought to him. There have been a lot of challenges thrown his way. Seventh-round pick, small school, knowing he can compete on this level but having to convince coaches and players and everyone else he can play. He's humble. But he's hungry.
"He is a rare cover cornerback. Some of them are just pass defenders and are not able to make plays on the ball while in coverage. He does. He locates the ball in coverage. He becomes the wide receiver."
Feisty. You hear Finnegan's teammates describe him that way. He chose Samford because other schools wanted to redshirt him; he wanted to play right away.
At Samford, though, Finnegan said he gained something more valuable than playing time. He developed the core of his character there. And much more.
"When I visited the school and then once I was there, I met people who cared so much about me as a person," Finnegan said. "We weren't very good in football. But I had so many people around me doing things for all of the right reasons. They worked on me as an individual. It was the place where my heart was transformed. Really, Samford chose me -- I didn't choose Samford.
"I gained a hunger for life there. And that made me hungrier for football. My spiritual life grew. I didn't find just a happiness that was just for the moment. I found a joy that was everlasting. So, things just blossomed. And they say in the NFL, if you can play, they will find you."
He was not invited to the NFL's annual scouting combine. So, he participated in a pre-draft pro day at Alabama-Birmingham. He was not the star attraction going in. But coming out, 10 NFL teams invited him to their facilities for a closer look. Some told him he would be a third- or fourth-round pick.
Draft day arrived. Finnegan watched the first five rounds. Discouraged, he joined a friend, Marcus Parker, on the basketball court. A few shots in, the phone rang. It was the Titans.
He had his biggest shot.
A foot in the door.
He would be used as a nickel back in his rookie season but surfaced last season as a starting cornerback. This season he had two picks in Tennessee's season-opening victory vs. Jacksonville, then one at Cincinnati, then one more last week vs. Houston. That one he returned for a team-record 99-yard score.
"My coaches have taught me that if you are green, you are growing, and if you are ripe, you are rotten," Finnegan said. "I've learned that if you prepare the field before the rain, things happen. Why has the ball been winding up in my hands? I play the game for God's glory. I have given a lot of prayer. Maybe it is my season."
Maybe it is his harvest.
Finnegan has a white piece of paper taped to the inside top of his locker. It is tucked up there, mostly out of view, but serves as his daily reminder. Scribbled on it are six team goals and six individual goals. He does not talk about them a lot. He keeps them close to his heart. Sort of his 12-step plan to success. They provide a jolt when he feels a twinge of uncertainty or despair.
He is, indeed, a football player.
He matches his mild persona off the field with an in-your-face, chattering approach in his bouts with receivers.
"You wouldn't even know the guy is in the locker room half the time," Titans defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch said. "But on the football field you've never seen somebody talk so much trash. After a play, I will hear some chirping going on behind me and I look back and he is giving it to them good. I love playing with guys like him who are so feisty. He is what our defense is all about. Aggressive. Tough."
A defense that leads the league in fewest points allowed at 9.7 per game.
Finnegan expounds: "I try to get into the receivers' heads. This is an offensive game with so many rules against the defense. People want to see points on the board. So, I try to challenge them and rib them and get them off their game. I'm constantly trying to rattle their heads."
Or, with the way he can start and stop and run and leap and cover and fight -- just take the ball away.
You do not find many players who after two seasons have convinced their organizations that a long-term investment is paramount. Finnegan was scheduled to earn $445,000 this season. But in mid-August the Titans signed him to a $17 million contract that lasts through 2011. This season he will earn a $4 million signing bonus, a $2 million roster bonus and a $500,000 base salary.
That is a ton of confidence in a player who has been around for only 29 months.
His mother, Linda, lives nearby and his sister, Lela, is an air traffic controller in the Navy, based in Seattle. Both provide him with unique inspiration, he said. His teammates say his persistent charity work in Nashville inspires others. His attitude, character and on-field production (he is also second on the team in tacklers with 19) are growing this player into a titan among the Titans.
"If from this moment on I was not able to play another down of football, I could give thanks for the time I have already had," Finnegan said. "The game is something I love. But I know it is more important for me to be a positive light."
