Drushal Signs Contract With NFL's Cleveland Browns

Rick Drushal will attempt to bring his skills to the National Football League.

» Drushal featured on ClevelandBrowns.com

Rick Drushal (Lakeville, Ohio / West Holmes), a three-time All-American offensive lineman for The College of Wooster, will have an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream after signing a one-year, non-guaranteed contract Monday with the National Football League’s Cleveland Browns as an undrafted free agent.

Drushal will be at this weekend’s mini-camp for Browns’ rookies (May 4-6). He also received an invitation from the Cincinnati Bengals to tryout at their rookie camp, but the Browns’ contract was a notch better.

“I was pretty shocked … followed by a wow feeling,“ explained Drushal when the Browns called him with the offer. “It was a pretty special moment when I went over to the P.E.C. (Physical Education Center) and saw the contract from the Cleveland Browns sitting on the fax machine with my name on it.”

While there’s no guarantee Drushal will advance to the team’s training camp, which begins at the end of July, Wooster head coach Mike Schmitz likes his chances, saying “They’re not going to extend a contract to somebody they don’t want in summer camp.”

Drushal, listed at 6-4 and 295 pounds, was Wooster’s left tackle the last four seasons (2003-06), starting a school-record 42 games, but he will likely be either a guard or center at the professional level. That’s a move he’s been preparing for throughout this winter and spring, spending a lot of time in the weight room and fine-tuning his footwork, quickness, and agility skills with the Scots’ offensive line coaches (Kyle Rooker, Justin Sloan).

“I played a little bit of guard at (Wooster’s) camp this year. Moving from tackle to guard isn’t a big deal, but moving into center is a totally different world.”

At Wooster, Drushal was All-North Coast Athletic Conference four times, including first-team as a sophomore, junior, and senior, in addition to being named to various NCAA Div. III All-America Teams. After the Scots’ perfect regular season in 2004 (10-0), he was selected a second-team Football Gazette All-American, followed by honorable mention on D3football.com’s 2005 All-America Team, and as a senior, the Associated Press (Little) and American Football Coaches’ Association chose Drushal for its respective All-America Teams.

Equally impressive in the classroom, Drushal was a member of the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® First Team and a recipient of a prestigious NCAA postgraduate scholarship this past year, and his intelligence is something that Schmitz believes will serve him well in a bid for a spot on the Browns’ active roster.

“Obviously, you don’t have a 3.75 GPA while double-majoring in mathematics and computer science at The College of Wooster, unless you’re very intelligent. Rick also possesses athleticism and a diversity of athletic experience as a three-sport star in high school and playing two sports in college. He has tremendous feet, great quickness … and is the type of young man that every (NFL) franchise would want to represent them.”

This will mark the second time in three seasons that a Wooster player has been at the Browns’ mini-camp, as three-time All-American running back Tony Sutton was there in 2005, but did not get brought back for the summer training camp. Sutton is currently in his second season, playing for the Cineplexx Blue Devils of the Austrian Football League.

“My goal when I go up there is to perform at the best of my abilities, and hopefully that’s enough to get an invite back to training camp at this point,” Drushal said. “All you can ask for is a shot, and now it’s up to me to make the most of it. It will be a great experience regardless.”

Drushal is looking to become the first Fighting Scot to make it onto an NFL roster since offensive lineman Blake Moore in the early 1980s. Moore, who helped Drushal get noticed when he dropped his name to Bengals’ president Mike Brown, was also an undrafted free agent, signing with Cincinnati in 1980 and playing six seasons in the pros with the Bengals and Green Bay Packers.