The Evolution Of Fields Proves Positively Saintly

It gets less probable by the day, this saga of Mark Lee Fields.

A year ago, he couldn’t make it to spring drills on time.

Yet he showed up early Saturday in the National Football League draft - snapped up by the team that has produced more Pro Bowl linebackers in the past few years than any other franchise.

Not to suggest that Mark Fields is next, but only - in light of the developments of the past 12 months - that such a destination isn’t improbable, given time.

Was it that upside or mere need that prompted the New Orleans Saints to hurry the Washington State linebacker off the board 13 picks into the draft?

He was gone before draftniks could finish whispering about Miami defensive tackle Warren Sapp, who slipped from somewhere in the top five to the 12th selection after someone leaked the rumored results of his last half-dozen drug tests.

And he was long gone before the Heisman-hyped trinity of Tyrone Wheatley, Napoleon Kaufman and Rashaan Salaam - which may be fitting, for Fields is faster than at least one of them.

Pegged to be picked anywhere from 17th to 30th, Fields made several thousand dollars and was spared at least an hour of stress when the Saints satisfied themselves so quickly.

“He’s been pretty anxious,” reported his mother, LaRondi. “I think he’ll be happy to have the whole thing over with.”

No kidding. Fields couldn’t bring himself to sit through the pick-by-pick melodrama.

“I was just a fan watching,” he said. “I was playing with my puppy - an English bulldog. I watched about the first five picks and then went outside and played with my puppy and when I came back in it was the Saints’ pick.

“When they said my name, I just sat down.”

Having already made everybody in the game sit up and take notice.

Seven other Cougars have been NFL first-round picks, but none of them took such a long and winding road as Fields. Indeed, it’s almost folklore in the football program, how he frittered away the better part of four years at WSU and a junior college academically indifferent, but socially inventive.

Then came a monster senior season - starting with the 71-yard fumble return to beat Illinois and concluding with selection as Pac-10 defensive player of the year. And for dessert was a performance at the NFL’s scouting combine that persuaded the pros to shine on his erratic history and his lack of experience:

A 4.52 clocking in the 40 - faster than the likes of Salaam and J.J. Stokes and Ty Law, though Fields goes 6-2 and 244 pounds. A 38-inch vertical leap. A 10-foot standing broad jump.

“Last year he walked into our weight room in his street clothes and our strength coach had to stop him at 400 pounds,” said WSU defensive coordinator Bill Doba. “We don’t have anybody benching 400 now. One NFL guy told me there’s not a player in the league now that’s as big and as fast and can run as well as Mark Fields.”

Said Bruce Lemmerman, the Saints’ director of college scouting, “He’s the type of player who can be on the field in every situation.”

Maybe. The fact is, his responsibilities in the Cougar defense were limited by design and by circumstance.

“The biggest concern the pros have,” said Doba, “is that middle linebackers have to make all the calls. Mark can do that, but we didn’t ask him to. We wanted him to play and not worry about motions and making calls because it slowed down his instinctiveness.

“If he’d had two years with the same kind of intensity he displayed this year, he’d be one of the top four or five players picked.”

In which case, he wouldn’t be a Saint and New Orleans - which is switching to a 4-3 scheme - certainly needs him. In 1992 and ‘93, the franchise had five different linebackers make the Pro Bowl. Of those, only Renaldo Turnbull remains. The Saints did sign Rufus Porter away from the Seahawks, but there’s nothing but opportunity in the middle.

“I think I can play right away,” Fields said. “I don’t know who they’ve got and they haven’t promised anything, but if somebody’s in my way, I’m still going to try to start.”

Doba, for one, doesn’t dismiss the notion: “The kid,” he said, smiling, “has Kryptonite in his veins.”

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review