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With more than half the NFL to choose from as an undrafted free agent, Indiana linebacker Tegray Scales, shown playing against the Purdue, joined the Rams.
The call never came for Tegray Scales.
But that doesn’t mean the Indiana linebacker’s phone didn’t ring during last month’s NFL Draft.
“Midway through the sixth round, I started to get calls from everybody saying, ‘I thought you would have been picked up by now,’ ” Scales said.
By the time the seventh round ended, it was clear the scenario had flipped. Rather than Scales waiting to be picked by an NFL team, the second-team All-Big Ten selection was going to be able to choose his own NFL destination as an undrafted free agent.
“I definitely talked to more than half the teams,” Scales said. “Calls start coming in and I was missing calls because I was talking to one team and another team was calling. My agent was talking to them, as well.”
With more than half the NFL to choose from, including his hometown Cincinnati Bengals, Scales decided to join the Los Angeles Rams.
“I just felt like it was the best fit,” Scales said on Tuesday, when the Rams unveiled their 2018 draft class at Cal Lutheran. “I like what’s going on here. They’re contenders for a championship, building up as a top team and I just want to be a part of it."
I was expecting to get drafted. … (But I’m) still blessed with this opportunity. I’m here. I can make the most of it.”
That he chose the Rams is another sign that the franchise, just two years after moving to the Conejo Valley, is becoming a destination for NFL players, whether it is at the top or bottom of the roster.
“We got a lot of the guys that we targeted,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said. “That goes back to just being able to have those guys targeted from the beginning, when you’re able to start making calls and have that communication, that contact occur. They felt good about the situation they were coming into.”
It was easier for the Rams to attract a free agent at a position like linebacker, considering the Rams had turned over three of their four starters at the position in the offseason and haven’t brought in any big-name free agents to fill the holes.
“I would say you do have a better chance to acquiring some top-level free agents at some of those spots where maybe you don’t have as much depth, based on a way that an agent perceives it,” McVay said. “It’s smart for these agents to look at it and be realistic about it.
“If you are a spot where there’s a lot of depth … it’s probably not going to be the most ideal place to go and try to make a football team.”
Although Scales said he didn’t necessarily look at the depth chart before making his decision.
“I didn’t really get into all that stuff,” Scales said. “I just knew they had some good players here, some veterans on the defense that I would like to learn from.”
Tegray Scales wasn't drafted last month. But the linebacker showed enough playmaking ability at Indiana to push for a role in the Rams' new-look defense.(Photo: PHOTO COURTESY OF CRAIG BISACRE/INDIANA ATHLETICS)
At 6-foot, 230 pounds with a 4.77-second 40-yard dash time, Scales wasn’t quite big or fast enough to be drafted.
But his instinctive playmaking ability, which he used to pile up 13 sacks and 36 tackles for loss over his final two years at Indiana, made him a sought-after free agent.
“I’m not the biggest or strongest, but I’m instinctive, I’m scrappy and I make plays,” Scales said.
Scales is just one interesting undrafted free agent on a 90-man roster that now has an influx of 28 rookies, 11 draft picks and 17 free agents.
Others included 6-6, 225-pound tight end Cody McElroy, who played baseball at Texas and in the Atlanta Braves system and basketball for Oklahoma State before picking up football for the first time since middle school at Southeast Oklahoma State.
McVay called him a “a priority free agent."
“I think you look at just the athleticism and you just see him in person, the size is impressive,” McVay said. “Not a lot of football experience, but a lot of upside that you’ve seen.”
The Rams also added former USC receiver Steven Mitchell, who was healthy as a senior after a series of knee injuries as a Trojan.
“Anytime you’re looking at a receiver, you want to see guys that have the ability to separate, aggressive hands attacking the football,” McVay said. “You look at the production that he’s had. He’s a guy that does have some of those traits and those characteristics that you’re looking for, that we feel like will translate.”
Texas A&M-Commerce quarterback Luis Perez, who, like McElroy, did not play varsity football in high school, earned a spot on the team over the weekend at the Rams' tryout camp.
“Everybody that I’ve talked to really can’t say enough about the human being,” McVay said. “But then when you just watch him in terms of natural base, balance, body position to deliver the ball, he earned the right to be able to be on this team.”
While Scales is walking into a good situation at linebacker, Weber State defensive lineman McKay Murphy turned down three other teams to join a depth chart that includes perhaps the two best players in NFL at his position, in Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh.
“I actually just got off the phone with my buddy and he asked me the exact same question,” Murphy said. “Some people could look at it as a huge obstacle, but I look at it as an amazing opportunity to learn from two of the best, to see how they operate.
“Some people could back down from the opportunity. But I see it as an opportunity to learn.”
Murphy is the third son of former major League baseball star Dale Murphy to sign with an NFL team. His brother Shawn, a guard, was drafted by Miami in 2008. His brother Jake, a tight end, was an undrafted free agent who played for four teams.
“I stopped playing baseball after eighth grade,” he said. “Basketball had too much running. Baseball wasn’t enough. So football was a happy medium in between. I was just always drawn more to the physicality of football.”
[www.vcstar.com]
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