Roddy White, he has been proved over the last decade, is tougher than AP calculus. More durable than a marine’s tattoo.
Those are the truths on one side of the scale.
On the other, there’s a healthy stack of calendar pages. White will turn 34 in November. The receiver is going into his 11th NFL season and is the oldest performer on the Falcons’ offense, the most veteran presence in a business that treasures the youthful burst and the first contract.
Know this about White. The football fatigue that eventually can wear down even the sturdiest of players (see Tony Gonzalez) hardly is a factor in this case. As another Falcons training camp opens in the wilds of Flowery Branch, White remains one of the more gregarious players on the field.
That big, energetic personality that made him a sometimes spewing fire hydrant on social media remains. Maybe it has become a little more directed, circumspect, with age, that’s all. “I had to just calm it down a little bit. I’m never going to calm it down that much that y’all aren’t going to get something. Because it’s in me, it’s part of me,” White said.
In fact, White is almost insulted by the suggestion that training camp might actually be the steamy drudgery that it appears. New Dan Quinn vibe or not, he’ll appreciate even the August practice field.
“Man, I enjoy being around my teammates. That’s what football is: getting better every day, going through things with your teammates, figuring out how this team is going to round out,” he said.
So, he gets his knee drained now and then. No biggie, he insists, hardly anything more than routine maintenance.
There is precedent for great receivers to be productive well into the twilight. White is not Jerry Rice — but as the Falcons’ most prolific receiver ever, he deserves a spot just south of there. And Rice had his career-high in receptions (108) the season he turned 34. At a comparative stage, Marvin Harrison (95 catches, 1,366 yards), Cris Carter (90/1,241), Tim Brown (76/1,128), Isaac Bruce (74/1,098) and Andre Reed (67/795) were all useful.
At least matching his 80-catch, 921-yard season of 2014 would be quite possible, if all the body parts cooperate.
His quarterback begins another season in the mood to sing of the remaining high-test in White’s tank.
“He’s got a lot left,” quarterback Matt Ryan said.
“There’s one thing I know more so than anything else: Roddy White is one of the most ferocious competitors that I’ve been around,” Ryan continued. “He loves playing and when you have guys like that you can’t discount them any time. He just shows up and knows how to compete, isn’t scared to make plays, isn’t scared to go in there and mix it up.
“He’s the best.”
White, it appears, has the football routine down cold. It’s the world outside the confines of training camp that unpredictably turns on a person.
His offseason wasn’t about just getting his joints lubed for training camp. White annually returns to his home area of James Island, S.C. — just outside of Charleston — to run a camp of his own for kids. And this year, that happened to fall just a week after the murders at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church.
White said he and his mother made “a very tough” visit to the church afterward. He was heartened by area’s reaction to the horror, saying, “It was good to see so much support, so many rallying behind those people.” And at the same time, when the kids gathered for his four-day camp, none of the teaching moments were spent on the nearby shooting.
“I was out there having fun with the kids, we didn’t have time to think about all that other stuff,” White said. “There was so much going on around there, people having funerals, all these other things happening throughout the city.
“I was all locked in with the kids, just teaching football.”
This summer also saw football return to White’s alma mater — UAB — just seven months after it was discontinued, much to White’s dismay. As one of those lobbying for the sport’s return, he celebrated the news.
How can it be that it has been more than 10 years since the Falcons made White a first-round pick, taking on a player whose potential remained well hidden his first couple of seasons in the league? He averaged just over 29 catches and 476 yards those first two years, and 88 catches for 1,176 yards the past eight.
White’s on his fourth head coach (not including one interim), and fifth offensive coordinator. He survived as the bodies piled up outside the administrative wing.
“I remember yesterday going through things with coach (Jim) Mora, just getting to learn the West Coast system. Now I’m right back to the West Coast system toward the end of my career,” White said.
It would be about now, as White is entering his mid-30s and is two years removed from his most recent 1,000-yard season, that some upstart defensive back might start reminding him of his age during all the playful banter that happens on the field. Friend or foe, they all participate.
“Nah, man that could be a sensitive subject,” Falcons safety William Moore said as he laughed. “We don’t give him nonsense about his age.”
With that, Moore thinks of another possible sore point all on his own. “I don’t want to talk about his (loss of) speed, either. But you know, he comes out here and he doesn’t need speed, basically, because he knows the game so much.”
“I don’t think I’m that old yet,” White said reassuringly.
“Babs (Jonathan Babineaux) and I are the seasoned veterans on the team. The guys see us and look up to us, hug onto you and ask, how’d you make it this far? It is a long time playing football.”
White is signed through 2018, but in the non-guaranteed realm of the NFL such deals are written in the sand. And the wind is always blowing a gale.
As tough and durable as White may be, as much as he said he wants to be a forever Falcon, can he really see himself at 37 laboring in this same camp?
This is the answer of the mature player that White has become:
“I try to be the best player I can be year in and year out. That’s how you stick around.
“Nothing’s guaranteed. I’m going to be a Falcon this year, and I’m just going to go from there.”
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