Editor’s note: This is the 29th installment of The McGinn Files, a series looking back at NFL drafts of the past 36 years. The foundation of the series is Bob McGinn’s transcripts of his annual interviews with general managers, personnel directors and scouts since 1985.

Fighting for extra yards late in the fourth quarter at Soldier Field, Blair Thomas fumbled away the football, the game and, some maintain, the balance of his NFL career.

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Is it possible for one fumble, however crushing it might have been for the New York Jets on that Monday night in September 1991, to leave irreparable scars on a player for not only games but seasons to come? Most football people would say no, that players who make it to the NFL are inherently stronger than that. If not, the head coach and his assistants would deliver such a powerful message of support as to drown out all seeds of doubt.

In Thomas’ case, however, some elements were present to make it plausible. He was an introvert, at times either unwilling or unable to participate in natural communication. The New York press could be and was merciless in its coverage of his four seasons for the Jets. His coach, Bruce Coslet, never again permitted him to carry more than 20 times in a game, let alone his career-high 27 that fateful night in Chicago.

There’s no way to prove any of the assertions. All one can do is probe for the reasons why Thomas, a seemingly wise selection as the No. 2 overall choice in the draft of 1990, was out of football at age 28 after six extremely disappointing seasons.

In those six years Thomas surpassed 100 yards rushing just twice. His brightest moment as a pro, which was gaining a career-best 125 yards against the undefeated Bears, also became his darkest hour.

The Jets led, 13-6, and were in the process of running out the clock. With 2 minutes remaining, on second down from the New York 34, Coslet could have instructed quarterback Ken O’Brien to take a knee twice before punting, which would have given Bears coach Mike Ditka and quarterback Jim Harbaugh about 30 seconds and no timeouts to go the length of the field. As a former special-teams coach, Coslet said he feared the chances of a botched punt more than the chances of a fumble.

So there went Thomas running off the right side behind rookie guard Dwayne White. Defensive tackle Steve McMichael shed White, knocked the ball loose from Thomas’ grasp and recovered. “Lordy, Lordy, Lordy,” crowed Dan Dierdorf in the ABC-TV booth. “Can you believe this?” The Bears drove for the tying touchdown to force overtime, dodged a 28-yard field goal attempt by Pat Leahy that missed wide left and won on Harbaugh’s 1-yard run. The telecast showed images of Thomas on the sidelines with his helmet off and head bowed.

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Afterward, Ditka said, “That was a miraculous play by Steve McMichael.” On Wednesday, as the blame game unfolded in New York, the cameras and columnists and beat men turned to Thomas, who said the fumble “is all behind me. It’s over with.”

If only it were that easy. Larry Beightol, the Jets’ offensive line coach for all four of Thomas’ seasons in New York, insisted that fumble affected the rest of his career.

“Oh, sure it did,” said Beightol, who implored him to get past the fumble. “It sure did. I hate to say that … I discussed it with him all the time. He goes, ‘Well, I think you’re right. I’m just not ready to do that just yet.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know. I’m just not.’ That’s how he left it with me.”

An NFL offensive line coach from 1985-’06, Beightol said he had observed other backs taking devastating fumbles to heart but never to the extent of Thomas. In 64 career games, including 36 starts, he finished with 2,236 yards in 533 carries, seven touchdowns and a 4.2-yard average. “I just don’t think he was all wrapped up in it,” Beightol said last week. “If he would have been, he had enough talent and ability. He could have stepped up and stood out. I think he would have been just fine if he was able to grab that bull (the fumble) by the horns and get it in line. It was tough. It was tough on him.”

Ron Nay was in his second season scouting for the Jets and 19th overall as an NFL personnel man when the Jets drafted Thomas. Nay, who remained with the Jets throughout Thomas’ four-year career, concurred with Beightol.

“I thought he was an excellent player,” Nay said last week. “Here’s what happened to him. He had kind of a slow start, but not because of him. They just wanted to bring him along. Then he fumbled. It was a Monday night game so the whole world saw it. I think that contributed to all the publicity he got for it. He got blasted in the newspapers and the kid just ducked his head and just never came out of it. The coaches didn’t do a lot to help him. He just went in the tank. It just killed him mentally. He never snapped out of it. He was just so down … Shoot, everybody in the world fumbles some time. There should have been a way to get him out of that. That’s ridiculous.”

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Instead, Thomas became even more withdrawn. He maintained a season-long silence with reporters in 1993, his swan song in New York.

“He almost crept around, like he was afraid to go anywhere,” a member of the Jets’ coaching-scouting departments in the early 1990s said last week. “He had no personality, no presence. I don’t know if he couldn’t talk or wouldn’t talk. He couldn’t express himself. I’m not sure if he had any friends among the players, coaches, anybody. He had more than enough talent. He didn’t make it to me because he was a social misfit.”

Rich Cimini, whose 31-year career covering the Jets began in 1989 with Newsday, remembered interviewing Thomas at his home in Philadelphia not long after the draft. “He didn’t have it easy,” Cimini, now with ESPN.com, said last week. “Guys got on him because I think they expected so much. He did not have the personality to handle it. He was kind of an introvert. You would think coming from a big school like Penn State that he would be media-savvy, but Blair was a really quiet guy. With each mediocre performance he just seemed to retreat deeper and deeper into a shell. I don’t think he handled it particularly well.”

Ball security must be uppermost in the mind of any running back, and Thomas was no exception. In a 2002 interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Thomas was asked by Rich Emert for some good stories regarding Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno.

“The only one I can think of is that my freshman year I kind of fumbled the ball a couple times early in the season,” said Thomas. “Joe told me if I kept fumbling I’d be on the bench for the rest of the season.” His fumble against the Bears was one of the eight he had in 609 career touches.

Thomas coached running backs at Temple from 1998-’05 when the Owls went 19-71 under coach Bobby Wallace. Today, he remains involved in several business and coaching ventures near his home in King of Prussia, Pa., including youth-football instructional camps.

In 2008, Thomas told Cimini, “As a kid, I dreamed about having the opportunity to play in the NFL. It’s a one-in-a-million chance.” In a 2019 interview with the Jets team website, he said, “I try to give back to a sport that’s been very generous and gracious to me, and pass on the knowledge that I have to the younger players. I enjoy that aspect of my life.”

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As a Penn State sophomore in 1986, Thomas carried just 60 times for the national champion Nittany Lions but averaged 8.4, a school record that still stands. He also returned 12 kickoffs for a 31.9 average, second best in the nation. He exploded for 1,414 yards in ’87. Late that season, in an informal workout prior to the Citrus Bowl, he suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and underwent surgery in January 1988.

When Dick Corrick, the Houston Oilers’ director of college scouting, went through Penn State in October 1988, he produced a glowing report of Thomas based off 1987 film. “Magic guy,” Corrick wrote. “Has unreal body quickness and COD (change of direction). Is elusive. Will climb back on dogs or blitzes. Runs hard. Has contact balance. Can finish a run. Has burst, instant speed, explodes. Very good hands. Terrific feet. Rare cut ability. Complete player.”

The possibility existed that Thomas might declare for the 1989 draft and join Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders atop the class of running backs. “Before being injured, he was the best pure runner this side of Barry Sanders,” independent scout Joel Buchsbaum wrote in Pro Football Weekly. “Before his injury, he was a franchise back.”

Although Thomas’ statistics in 1989 were almost identical to his 1988 numbers, he didn’t seem to be running quite like his pre-injury self until late in the season. In the Holiday Bowl, he accounted for 230 yards from scrimmage in a 50-39 victory over Brigham Young. Then, after an appearance in the Japan Bowl, Thomas was named most valuable player at the Senior Bowl after carrying 11 times for 137 yards.

“Can’t ever remember one player dominating an all-star game like he did,” Corrick, a veteran of 19 NFL seasons as a scout, wrote after watching Thomas all week in Mobile. “Nobody is in his class.”

Cimini spent a portion of the fourth quarter at the Senior Bowl seated next to Dick Steinberg, who a month earlier had been named the Jets’ GM after the firing of Mike Hickey, the team’s director of player personnel. “I’ll never forget what Dick said,” said Cimini. “’My grandmother could tell you who the best player on the field was today.’ I thought, ‘This guy is head over heels in love with Blair Thomas.’ And he took him.”

Rather than attend the combine in Indianapolis, Thomas elected to run the 40-yard dash on a notoriously fast, downhill surface at Penn State. One NFL team credited Thomas with a 4.56 clocking whereas the Jets’ media guide listed 4.48 and Buchsbaum, a confidant of Steinberg’s, went with 4.45. Both Corrick and Michael Lombardi, the director of pro personnel for the Cleveland Browns, listed breakaway speed as a shortcoming for Thomas. As a rookie, the Jets listed Thomas at 5-10, 195. He scored 17 on the 12-minute, 50-question Wonderlic test.

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Of the half dozen scouts that I polled before the draft regarding the best running back, each one picked Thomas.

“He’s the top one, by far,” said John Butler, the Buffalo Bills’ director of college scouting. “He’s proved he’s back. The knee is fine. He does it against everybody. He catches the ball fine. When you do see him have to block, he’s sure willing to do it. I think he’s just a heck of a football player. He’s a lot like Thurman Thomas.”

The second back on Butler’s list was Florida’s Emmitt Smith, who went No. 17 to the Dallas Cowboys and eventually to the top of the NFL’s all-time rushing list. There were just 25 picks in the first round because of the three supplemental-draft choices exercised in 1989. Of the 25, four others were running backs: No. 19 Darrell Thompson of Minnesota, No. 20 Steve Broussard of Washington State, No. 24 Rodney Hampton of Georgia and No. 25 Dexter Carter of Florida State. No draft since has had more than five running backs in the first round. The later rounds were brimming with good backs, too.

Nevertheless, the support for Thomas as No. 1 was widespread.

“He is head and shoulders above the rest of them,” said Tom Braatz, the Green Bay Packers’ executive vice president of football operations. “He’s got it all, everything you’re looking for. The only thing wrong with him is he had that major knee surgery. He’s a great person for the team. Got leadership. Spends time with kids.”

“(No. 1) in a New York minute,” Joe Woolley, the Philadelphia Eagles’ director of player personnel, said. “He’s in a class by himself this year.”

“Take your pick as the No. 1 running back: (Indiana’s) Anthony Thompson or Blair Thomas,” said Tony Razzano, director of college scouting for San Francisco.

Tom Heckert Sr., the Miami Dolphins’ director of college scouting, made the obvious comparison to Curt Warner (5-11, 202), a three-time Pro Bowl runner for the Seattle Seahawks and the No. 3 pick in 1983.

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“I think he’s better than Curt Warner,” Heckert said. “He’s a quicker, faster Curt Warner. He can run, he can catch, he’ll try to block although he’s not the biggest guy in the world. Great person. The only negative on him is the knee, but he doesn’t wear a brace and it doesn’t look like he’s lost anything. The guy is a great back. He’s as quick as (Walter) Payton but he’s not as stocky built. I don’t think there’s any negative on the kid.”

As with almost all pro prospects during Paterno’s 46-year reign, there were unanswered questions about character and attitude. For years, some scouts told me how much they despised making the school call to Penn State because Paterno intentionally made their jobs more difficult by limiting access and blocking the standard scout-school official communication.

“I was at Penn State so many times,” one veteran personnel man said last week. “It was a closed shop. You got no information. It was just disgraceful.”

One member of the Jets’ coaching-scouting staff said he had no inkling Thomas would prove to be so introverted until he arrived and began working at their facility. Steinberg didn’t place a high priority on interviews at the combine or elsewhere. “As fine a person to work for and with and to be around as you will meet,” said one of his colleagues. “But he didn’t believe in that firm handshake or a good, outgoing personality. He was strictly a size-speed guy. He knew personnel. He just thought talent was the only criteria to winning.”

Three weeks before the draft, Steinberg said to me regarding Thomas, “You obviously think of Curt Warner. I think he’s really a better runner than Curt Warner. A more instinctive runner.”

In addition to Steinberg, at least three of the Jets’ six area scouts would have seen and graded Thomas. In order of most seniority with the Jets, the group included Don Grammer, Marv Sunderland, Joe Collins, Sid Hall, Daryl Gross and Nay.

According to Buchsbaum, the choice came down to defensive tackle Cortez Kennedy of Miami and Thomas. Because Kennedy had weight issues and started for just one season, Thomas was viewed as the safer pick, wrote Buchsbaum.

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In early February, Steinberg hired Cincinnati’s Bruce Coslet as coach, replacing Joe Walton. The offenses that Coslet coordinated with the Bengals in the previous four seasons ranked first, fifth, first and third, and running back James Brooks (5-10, 180) played an enormous role in that success by being named to the Pro Bowl three times.

“The whole thing was, Bruce Coslet really wanted Blair Thomas because of James Brooks at Cincinnati,” recalled Nay. “He said, ‘I can really use him, that type of player.’ He really wanted him because he was a small, quick guy like James Brooks. Dick made the picks but I’ll tell you, he really listened to the head coach. He was influenced by them (coaches) more than I think he was the scouts, who probably knew more about it than he (Coslet) did. I was at San Diego when they drafted James Brooks (No. 24, 1981). I said, ‘Blair Thomas is no James Brooks, but he’s really good.’

After Illinois quarterback Jeff George went No. 1 to Indianapolis, the Jets took Thomas and the Seahawks selected Kennedy. At No. 4, Tampa Bay drafted linebacker Keith McCants of Alabama. Another junior, Southern Cal linebacker Junior Seau, went No. 5 to the Chargers.

Seau played in high school at Oceanside, Calif., which was just north of San Diego, where Nay and Hall lived. Nay had a private workout with Seau before the combine. Seau, who was Prop 48 in 1987, backed up for the Trojans in ’88 before enjoying a breakout campaign in ’89 and eventually declaring for the draft.

“He was outstanding against Arizona (in Game 10) and we watched it and Dick said, ‘Well, that was his golden look,’ like he couldn’t do it all the time,” said Nay. “Dick had seen him against (Michigan) and didn’t think he played that well. When I talked to Junior he said, ‘Yeah, I had the wrong-sized shoes and my feet were killing me.’” He had forgotten to take his cleats to the Rose Bowl.

“Me and another scout, Sid Hall, almost begged Steinberg to take Junior Seau,” Nay added. “When we didn’t take Seau I took a walk down the hallway and was just about sick to my stomach. Everyone has their mistakes. Before the draft Dick said, ‘I hope someone drafts our mistake before we get to him.’ I had to think about that but it is very true.

“Dick was a good guy but you didn’t argue with him. You just said what you wanted to say and he would shut you off and that’d be it. He might say, ‘OK,’ but he’d never change anything. He picked who he wanted. There was no changing his mind after that. He had been very successful doing that at (other) places.”

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Paterno’s statement that Thomas “probably is the best all-around back I have ever coached” certainly carried weight. His running backs from 1966-’89 included Franco Harris, Lydell Mitchell, John Cappelletti, Warner and D.J. Dozier.

So did the fact that Thomas had spent five years at a major college, not two like future Hall of Famers Kennedy and Seau. Shortly after the pick, Steinberg called Thomas “the total package as a running back. We think by far he was the best value at the time.” Coslet said Thomas would be used comparably to how he used Brooks in Cincinnati.

Although Nay and Hall made their stand for Seau, the entire scouting staff liked Thomas. “All the scouts thought he was the cat’s meow, including myself,” said one staff member. “He was highly productive. But he was a short strider. Unless those guys are really fast they can get caught from behind. He was a shorter guy.”

Nay had high regard for Thomas as well. “I said, ‘Well, if you can’t have Junior Seau, this is a darned good player,’” he said. “In fact, he was probably the second or third guy on my list of all the guys I’d seen that year.”

The Jets didn’t help the situation by failing to reach contractual terms with Thomas until Aug. 25. After playing in just one exhibition game, Thomas fell into a backfield rotation in which carries were almost equally divided among aging Freeman McNeil, 235-pound Brad Baxter, veteran Johnny Hector and Thomas. The first of the two 100-yard games of his career came in Game 4 at New England (20-100). In the final 12 games of the Jets’ 6-10 season Coslet never gave Thomas more than 14 carries.

In June 1990, a month after the draft, longtime Raiders executive Ron Wolf joined Steinberg in New York as director of player personnel. The holdout by Thomas prevented Wolf from getting much of a feel for him that first summer, but between then and late November 1991, when he departed for Green Bay and the GM’s job with the Packers, Wolf saw enough to have an opinion.

“He just looked like a little guy, if you know what I mean by that,” said Wolf. “He just looked like he didn’t fit. He didn’t look like a pro, or like you would expect a pro to look like. (Tony) Dorsett looked like a pro, I don’t care how tall he was. Now I was only there that year and a half. But I don’t know that Blair Thomas ever did shit while I was there.”

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Steinberg, a successful personnel man with the Cowboys, Rams, Saints and Patriots before coming to the Jets, drafted West Virginia wide receiver Reggie Rembert early in the second round. The Jets failed to sign Rembert and traded him to Cincinnati, where he also was a bust. Although Steinberg unearthed a couple of starters later on, five of the first six selections of his first draft for the Jets washed out.

“At the end of the first year I’m sitting there going through the first draft with them,” said Wolf. “I’ll never forget the young guy who worked in the office. After our first year, he said, ‘Why was our draft so bad?’ I said, ‘Because we picked bad players.’ It was pretty obvious.”

His second season was the only time Thomas led the Jets in rushing. His career-high total of 189 carries led to a career-high best 728 yards, which was 62 more than Baxter posted in another four-headed ground game. A surprise playoff entrant, the 8-8 Jets rushed for merely 71 yards in a 17-10 wild-card loss at Houston. Thomas sat out the playoff game with an ankle injury, the start of a rash of injuries that short-circuited his career.

In 1992, Thomas missed three games with groin and hip injuries, and then four more with a sprained knee. In 1993, his last in New York, he was sidelined for five games with a hamstring.

“I remember having to take three or four Advils to get through warmups,” Thomas told the New York Times in 2015. “I was going to the chiropractor, having lower back issues, ankles, knees. It was a slew of things, and I couldn’t get my head wrapped around it at the time.”

Was Thomas soft? Was he a malingerer?

“No, no, no, no, not at all,” said Beightol. “Hey, we used to have to calm him down a little bit. ‘Hey, back off, you don’t need to be in there right now.’ We used to say we wished the hell he wouldn’t (run so hard) and avoid some of those licks. But not him. He told me one time he didn’t want people saying he wasn’t very tough. He was a tough kid.”

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Before the start of training camps in 1992, Pro Football Weekly ranked Thomas as the NFL’s 13th-best running back. “Looked like another Curt Warner until he fumbled late in the Bear game,” Buchsbaum wrote. “Then he became tentative. It looked like he was thinking and not reacting.”

In 1993, Coslet brought in Johnny Roland, a veteran NFL assistant, to coach running backs in an attempt to salvage Thomas’ career in the final year of his contract. Once again, Thomas was part of a rotation system with ex-Cardinal Johnny Johnson, Baxter and rookie Adrian Murrell. Then he suffered the hamstring injury in Game 5, missed five games and, with his confidence shattered, hardly played in the final month.

“Coming out of Penn State they knew the kind of back that I was,” Thomas told reporters on the day after the 1993 season, breaking his season-long silence. “They knew I needed to get the ball a lot. They just didn’t use me in the way that I was capable of showing my best. I feel like I have a lot of good football left in me.”

In four seasons for the Jets, Thomas never had even one moment of glory. Bill Parcells, the second-year coach of the Patriots, signed him to a one-year, $500,000 deal as an unrestricted free agent in late March 1994. He sprained his ankle on the second play of the exhibition opener and was inactive for seven of the first 11 games. Finally, after 19 carries, Parcells released him.

“It was difficult for me to do this because I really like him very much personally,” Parcells said. “I think he’s a really good, quality person.” On his way out the door in Foxborough, Thomas told reporters, “I’m not going to be one of those guys who chases the game. I’m not going to still be playing when I’m 35 or 40 years old. I still love the game. It’s just that I’ve had an unfortunate stretch of luck happen to me.”

About a week later, Dallas signed Thomas to provide insurance behind Emmitt Smith down the stretch. Thomas started the meaningless regular-season finale and rushed for 63 yards. Two weeks later, in the Cowboys’ 35-9 victory over Green Bay in the NFC divisional playoffs, Smith had to depart after seven carries for 44 yards with a hamstring injury. Thomas gained merely 17 yards in his first 12 attempts but picked up steam to finish 23-70 with touchdown runs of 1 and 2 yards. However, the Cowboys didn’t want him back.

It took four months on the unrestricted market in 1995 for Thomas to find a home. This time it was in Atlanta, but the Falcons cut him shortly before the start of the season. In November, the phone rang from Carolina, where he ended up carrying 22 times in seven games. An unrestricted free agent for a third time in 1996, the time the phone didn’t ring and it was time to call it a day.

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Wolf remembered just how excited Steinberg was about Thomas during their first year together in New York. The selection of Thomas with Steinberg’s first pick as a GM was the product of his scouting system that Wolf said was first developed by the Cowboys in the 1960s under GM Tex Schramm. Steinberg’s first NFL job was with the Cowboys in 1969; it was in Dallas that he learned from Bucko Kilroy, one of the team’s scouts. When Kilroy moved to New England as director of player personnel in 1972, Steinberg went there to scout for five years.

“Bucko loved Dick,” said Wolf. “Bucko then started to like me because I worked for Dick. Tex Schramm went to IBM. They had a system how to hire good people. It was from there he borrowed from that and developed the system that the Cowboys used.”

Wolf struggled to understand that system after 25 years with the Raiders. So did Nay, who first encountered the Dallas scouting system with the Jets and then worked in it later under Joe Mendes in Washington.

“It was all by number,” Nay said. “There was no place for a gut feeling on a report form. It was all cut and dried. It was hard to teach it to some new scout. Whether you believe it or not, that’s where the numbers fit (players).”

It was announced at the Jets’ final game of the 1994 season that Steinberg was suffering from stomach cancer. He died in September 1995. He was 60.

“I had never been around a guy in pro football who was as positive as Dick was,” said Wolf. “It was a remarkable trait. Once it was done it was done, and you moved on. My year and a half with him, I learned so much.

“That system was designed to prevent you from making a mistake. With those guys, it was like the golden rule. You can’t bend it. They loved that system. I’m sure that Blair Thomas checked all the boxes to be up where they took him. He was everything that you needed to be. It can happen to anybody.”

(Photo: George Rose/Getty Images)

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