Walter & Me by Eddie Payton & Paul Brown & Craig Wiley

Author:Eddie Payton & Paul Brown & Craig Wiley [Payton, Eddie & Brown, Paul & Wiley, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2012-08-21T05:00:00+00:00

8. Bringin’ In the New

The Bible tells you that if you ask for forgiveness with a pure heart, then forgiveness will be yours. There’s no other price that needs payin’ because Jesus Christ done already paid it. Walter and I had plenty of “come to Jesus” moments over the years, that’s for sure. I mean, there are some things I’ve done throughout my college and professional football careers that I’m not proud of, and I’ve had to look to the Lord to wipe it all away. It’s only through Him that I’ve been able to the throw out the old and bring in the new. I’m no different than anyone else. Same goes for Walter. And as for anyone else, well, nobody’s perfect. We all need forgiveness. We all need to come to Jesus. We all need our sins washed away. Perhaps none of us more so than the men calling the shots for the Falcons, the Cowboys, and the Colts in the 1975 NFL draft. Those teams had the first three picks. Walter Payton went fourth. Sinners.

Steve Bartkowski, quarterback from the University of California, was taken by the Atlanta Falcons as the No. 1 pick, and there was no doubt who they were going with. Things were a little different after that. The Dallas Cowboys had the second pick, and they couldn’t decide. They wanted to go one way and then another. Legendary Bears coach Mike Ditka was an assistant coach with Dallas in 1975. He said, “In the war room, when we were trying to decide who to take, Dan Reeves and all the offensive coaches wanted to take Walter. Coach Landry was a little more defensive-minded, though he agreed Walter was the best player in the draft.” Everybody wanted my little brother, and a lot of teams were trying to trade up to get him. But Coach Ditka said that in the end Dallas wound up taking defensive tackle Randy White out of Maryland. “Not a bad pick,” said Ditka of White. “He was a great, great player and ended up in the Hall of Fame, too.” Okay, so the Cowboys passed on one of the greatest players of all time to get another Hall of Famer at a position where they had a need. Maybe we can let that slide, but surely the next team would take Walter. Or maybe not.

The Baltimore Colts had the third pick and selected Ken Huff, an offensive guard out of the University of North Carolina. Should’ve been Walter. Ray Perkins was a scout for the New England Patriots at the time, and he was amazed to see Walter fall past the third pick. Perkins was from Petal, Mississippi, so maybe he was partial to someone from his home state, but I think it was more about what he saw as a scout. “I watched Walter practice, and he was simply unbelievable,” Perkins said about scouting my brother. “That was the good news. The bad news was we had the 16th pick that year, and there was no way he would still be available by then.

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