Marques Colston has one of the most appropriate nicknames of all time: “The Quiet Storm.” He was a soft-spoken anti-superstar who preferred to stay as far under the radar as possible during his remarkable, 10-year run to his place as the New Orleans Saints' all-time leading receiver.
But Colston almost wound up with one of the most inappropriate nicknames of all time as well: “Mr. Irrelevant.”
A decade ago, Colston was just three picks away from being the final selection in the 2006 NFL draft, which would have come with that infamous “Mr. Irrelevant” tag. Instead, the Saints took him out of Hofstra in Round 7, with the 252nd overall pick. Then Colston became the best late-round draft pick in franchise history.
Colston caught 711 passes for 9,759 yards and 72 touchdowns during his Saints career, before being released earlier this year. All 72 of those TDs came from quarterback Drew Brees (who also arrived in New Orleans in 2006 as a free agent), including Brees’ first touchdown pass with the Saints in a Week 1 victory at Cleveland that season.
Just how unknown was Colston at the time? Brees told me recently that Colston’s name was misspelled on the commemorative ball from that TD pass, which Brees still has in his office.
Colston's anonymity changed quickly. As a duo, Brees and Colston rank fifth in NFL history with their 72 touchdown connections.
It was never completely clear why Colston lasted as long as he did in that year’s draft. Colston admitted he had a rift with former Hofstra coach Joe Gardi after he decided to sit out the 2004 season to have shoulder surgery. But Gardi and Saints personnel executives refuted reports that the Hofstra coaches bad-mouthed Colston to NFL teams.
Mostly, the 6-foot-4, 225-pounder just hadn’t tapped into his massive potential when he was in college. Colston had a good but not dominant career as a four-year starter at Hofstra, with 182 catches for 2,834 yards and 22 touchdowns. His work ethic and skills as a pass-catcher reached another level when he joined the Saints.
Things didn’t change overnight in the NFL, though. Saints coach Sean Payton and receivers coach Curtis Johnson both tell stories about how unimpressive Colston was during the Saints’ rookie minicamp, in which Colston struggled with his conditioning. By the end of that summer, however, he won a starting job and began to alter the course of Saints history.
HONORABLE MENTION
Jahri Evans, OG, Bloomsburg, 2006: Two of the Saints’ all-time greatest draft picks came in the '06 draft class. Three rounds before they discovered Colston, the Saints plucked Evans out of Division II Bloomsburg, where he had been a dominant left tackle. Evans won the Saints’ starting right guard job as a rookie and held it for 10 years. In the process, he went to six Pro Bowls and was named first-team All-Pro four times.
Eric Martin, WR, LSU, 1985, and Danny Abramowicz, WR, Xavier (Ohio), 1967: The Saints have a way of finding receivers late in the draft. Martin, who was drafted in the seventh round, ranks second in franchise history in both receptions (532) and receiving yards (7,854). Abramowicz, who was drafted in the 17th round during the franchise’s first season, still ranks fourth in Saints history with 4,875 receiving yards.
Morten Andersen, K, Michigan State, 1982: Andersen was drafted in the fourth round, which is high for a kicker. But this was a bargain for a player who went on to become the NFL’s all-time leading scorer and a member of both the 1980s and 1990s all-decade teams in the NFL. Andersen is one of four members of the Saints’ Ring of Honor, and he has been among the 15 finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in each of the past three years.