Samkon Gado; NFL’s loss, medicine’s gain
Like, a comet, like an explosion, out of the ether he came and back into it he went.
It was a little over five years ago now that Samkon Gado exploded into the NFL; a feel good story of a guy who fought and ran so hard, and so far and with such bursts of speed, right to the NFL and into the spotlight for the Packers.
And it was about five years ago he vanished from the NFL.
The 2005 Green Bay Packers were not playing well. They’ve just dropped a close game to Carolina on national television, losing 32-29, and the team’s record has dropped to 0-4. But the biggest blow is a thigh strain to Packers starting back Ahman Green, who will miss the next game, a 52-3 win over the Saints.
Starting in Green’s place is Najeh Davenport. He picks up 54 yards and two scores on 12 rushes. He also breaks his ankle and will miss the rest of the season.
After a bye in Week 6, the Packers went to Minnesota, where they lost another close game. During the fourth quarter, Ahman Green takes a hard hit from Vikings linebacker E.J. Henderson and leaves the game with a knee injury. His season is also finished.
Green’s season-ending injury is the second such injury to a Packers running back and another addition to a loaded Packers injured reserve: receiver Javon Walker is gone for the season and rookie Terrence Murphy’s career will end after a spinal cord injury in Week 3. Between the close games and the injuries, things are not rolling in the Packers favor.
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But then, it had already been a tumultuous season in Green Bay. The Packers had taken general manager powers away from head coach Mike Sherman earlier that year and hired Ted Thompson as GM. There was a sense of impending change around Sherman’s job that season, explained Packers blogger Brandon Benson.
“Instead of keeping the one he inherited,” said Benson, “It seemed inevitable that Thompson would replace Sherman too, and look to hire his own head coach.”
At the time, Sherman had been coach of the Packers since 2000 and his team had made four straight playoff appearances. The combo of quarterback Brett Favre and Green gave the Packers one of the NFL’s best offenses – in that four-year playoff stretch, the Green Bay’s offense was in the top six for most points scored.
In the 2005 draft, however, Thompson had selected a quarterback out of Cal named Aaron Rodgers. Despite the Packers success, the grooming of Favre’s eventual successor had begun.
October 30. The Packers travel to Cincinnati for a bizarre day. A fan will run on field and take the ball from Favre’s hands. Favre will throw five interceptions but also lead a drive in the final minute, where a score would tie the game. But, with five seconds left, at the Bengals’ 30, Favre will be called for an illegal forward pass, and the game ends. Green Bay will lose 21-14. They would drop their next game as well, 20-10 to the Steelers.
Headed into Week 10, the Packers were a mess. Their record was 1-7, they had lost three major components of a high-scoring offense for the season and their starting running back – Gado – had only been signed to the team for less than a month.
Born in Nigeria, Gado came to the United States at age nine. He played college ball at Liberty University, a private Christian university best known for its ties to Jerry Falwell. Undrafted by a NFL team, Gado tried out unsuccessfully for the Kansas City Chiefs and was only added to the Packers practice squad on October 17.
It was in the loss to the Steelers that Gado first made an impact. After starting running back ReShard Lee fumbled on his second run, Green Bay went to it’s fifth-string running back. He finished with 62 yards and Green Bay’s only major.
The next week he made his first career start against Atlanta and exploded across the field. Gado ran for over 100 yards – the most any Packer had rushed for at that point in the season. He scored three times, including a touchdown catch. Not a bad first start – or a bad way to spend your 23rd birthday. Indeed, Gado would be named Rookie of the Week by the NFL following the game.
He followed up his debut with two more big games: 75 yards and a score against Chicago and 171 and a score in Week 13 against Detroit.
But not only did Gado have three good games, he “gave the offense an element that they didn’t have before,” said Benson.
“Green had been to the previous four Pro Bowls, but he was not a factor when healthy because the Packers had let two veteran offensive linemen leave in free agency before the season. By the time Gado arrived, the line was in better shape, and he provided a running attack that hadn’t been there earlier in the year.”
After all, after only four games, Gado was the team’s leading rusher.
It’s Week 14, Green Bay at Baltimore, late in the first quarter. Gado already has 45 yards on six carries, but on the sixth, he’s tackled by Kelly Gregg and Aubrayo Franklin and tweaks his knee. It’s a torn MCL. Gado becomes another Packers casualty and misses the rest of the season.
The Packers finish the season with a 4-12 record, their worst in over a decade. With a depleted stable of running backs, Farve throws the ball more than he ever had – 607 attempts, a then-career high. He also finishes with 29 interceptions, still a career high. The Packers fire Sherman in the offseason and bring in Mike McCarthy.
Just one week into the 2006 season, Gado is traded to Houston. He appears in 11 games over two seasons, starting one, before being released. He spends a stint in Miami, then two seasons in St. Louis, where he only has 16 carries. He hasn’t appeared in a game since.
That’s quite the drop off: from starting and picking up nearly 600 yards in just eight games in his rookie season, being named Rookie of the Week in 2005 to all but vanishing. What happened?
The answer is two-fold.
“His trade was a surprise,” said Benson, “but he wasn’t a great fit in their passing game. He only had 10 receptions in 2005. ”
He was traded for Vernand Morency, who only played one season with the Packers. However, Morency was a more complete back: he couldn’t rush like Gado, but he was a bigger part of their passing game (nearly 120 yards receiving).
Another contributing factor was how Gado had bigger ideas than football – it almost seems as it if didin’t need to succeed on the field. In 2007, he missed four weeks of offseason conditioning drills to study for the Medical College Admission Test.
So, what is one to make of Gado’s career? He burst into the scene but retreated back into the ether soon thereafter. While it’s tempting to cast him off as a one-season wonder, somebody who perhaps was only good because defenses didn’t know how to play him, it’s worth noting teams keep taking flyers on him while countless other backs fade away. Maybe, given a similar chance to what he had in 2005, he could repeat a stellar performance.
Ultimately, however, is that the right thing to take away from Gado? Wouldn’t it be right to look at the bigger picture? In 2007, Texans head coach Gary Kubiack called Gado “an impressive human being.”
Gado himself put it best in an AP article from 2007: “Football has been a very welcome diversion and I’d like to entertain that as long as possible. But for as long as I can remember, the plan has always been med school.”
“Medicine has always been priority No. 1.”
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