Mark Ingram – Emotions, ‘Bama Past and New Orleans Future


I don’t usually watch draft nights. Maybe just zap my way through them. I get bored kind of quickly. Too much talk about intangibles, stats and whatever. Too much Mel Kiper Jr. and his hair I guess. The man knows football, but it’s a bit too much for me come draft night.

I did watch a bit of the lower picks of the first round. There was nothing better to watch, mind you. Mark Ingram, Alabama’s running back who was huge in 2009. Winning the Heisman, the national championship (first player since Matt Leinart in ’04) and breaking Bobby Humphrey’s single season rushing record for the Crimson Tide (1658). Things didn’t go so well for him and the Tide in ’10.

His father, Mark Ingram, Sr., a Super Bowl champion with the Giants, got two additional years to his jail sentence for skipping bail in order to watch his son play for ‘Bama. Ingram missed the beginning of the season due to a minor knee surgery he underwent. He was a major force when he returned, but the Tide weren’t the team they were in 2009.

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Ingram was picked by the New Orleans Saints at 28th, the same spot his dad got selected in by the Giants in 1987.  Needless to say, the whole situation was an emotional one for the 21 year old running back, who couldn’t hold his tears and emotions back during the interview after getting picked by the Saints.

Beyond the emotion, Ingram getting picked 28th in the first round made him the first running back off the board. That is the lowest place the first running back reached since the NFL-AFL merger. With the move toward two backs and not just relying on one really good one, the running back is sort un-trending the way a wide receivers were a few years ago. You don’t get too many Adrian Peterson types and even they don’t have much of a shelf life.

As for Ingram, despite not being Alabama born and raised (born in Jersey, played high school football in Michigan), maybe there’s something involving Karma with his Saints future. The city devastated back in 2005 by the Hurricane. Alabama devastated by Tornadoes. I hope a lot off good comes from this connection.


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