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Hard Work Pays Off For One Bears Rookie

I found this article at the most an interesting read.

Bears rookie, Jay Staggs, out of UNLV went undrafted, but not for long.  He had done his work before the draft and Bears coaches were watching.

The 6-1, 220-pound safety from UNLV was on a bad team that finished 2-10 in the Mountain West Conference, hardly on the radar of most scouts. So Staggs started by finding phone numbers for teams on NFL.com. Then he called front offices and relentlessly sought numbers for West Coast scouts. He kept a chart of all his calls.

''When I called a scout, if I didn't hear from him, I called twice the next day,'' Staggs said. ''If I still didn't hear from him, I called three times the day after that.''

He practically lived in the UNLV football office as he put together two DVDs of himself, one on defense and one on special teams. He mailed them to anyone he thought could help him, spending more than $4,000. At the small Texas vs. The Nation All-Star Game in El Paso, he brought ''swag bags,'' including a profile of himself and the DVDs, and went around passing them out to scouts. He also had seven tackles, a sack and a forced fumble and recovery during the game.

''With my work ethic and love for the game, who knows what can happen?'' Staggs said. ''This is my passion.''

He got in contact with Bears scout Marty Barrett and finally was hooked up with special-teams coordinator Dave Toub, who liked what he saw. When Staggs went undrafted, Toub acted fast to get him on board, and now he's in position to perhaps replace Cameron Worrell, who made the Bears as a tryout player in 2003 and left for Miami in free agency.

Having a guy who is willing to put in the hours can't be a bad thing, especially on special teams.