Without Butler, WR Tyler Adams wouldn’t have overcome near-impossible odds to become a Colt

INDIANAPOLIS — For a little while, Tyler Adams thought it might be over.

He’d been through so much already.

A season spent away from the game on his own accord, then a season lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, then his long-anticipated return to the football field marred by a torn ACL and a torrid rehabilitation, intent on landing some kind of shot at the NFL.

Adams had fought his way back from the initial ACL injury in just half a year, fought his way back onto Harvard’s football team and into the playing rotation despite the fact that he hadn’t played a down for the Crimson in more than two years.

Then he tore the same ACL again in his second game back.

“I honestly thought I’d played my last football game,” Adams said.

Harvard had always kept the door open for him in the past, but the Ivy League was about to slam that door shut. The conference rarely approves a fifth year of eligibility for athletes, granting exemptions only in extreme cases.

Even two torn ACLs in a single calendar year wouldn’t cut it.

If Adams was going to give himself one last shot at an NFL opportunity, he’d have to do it somewhere else.

“I needed a program that believed in me,” Adams said. “I started developing a plan to get me in position to have an opportunity to play, and from there, it was kind of up to a school to take a chance on me.”

‘It was worth the risk’

Nine hundred miles away, new Butler head coach Mike Uremovich and his staff were poring over the film of hundreds of players in the transfer portal, looking for guys who could meet their school’s academic requirements and fill needs for a new coaching staff in its first year on campus.

Adams hadn’t played much football.

But what they saw was intriguing, a speedy, athletically gifted receiver with a knack for making the big play. Uremovich and wide receiver Ray Holmes reached out to Adams, finding him in Georgia, where he’d gone to work with longtime trainer Dana Barry in the hopes of hitting the tight, eight- to nine-month window he needed to play one last full college football season.

“They had reached out to me earlier in the summer,” Adams said. “I think they just wanted a guy with experience who could come in and kind of plug and play with some of the younger guys, and then be a complement to the veterans, some of the older guys who were already there.”

Uremovich’s only question was whether the knee would be ready to go.

Two ACL tears on the same knee, in the same year, is not an easy obstacle to overcome.

Adams sent the Butler coaches film of his work in rehabilitation, proof he’d started running and cutting.

“Frankly, for me, in our situation, it was worth the risk, taking a guy like him in our program in year one,” Uremovich said. “Yeah, there were no guarantees his knee was going to be OK, but he was worth the risk.”

Year off, canceled season, ACL tears

Adams had already taken a long, winding road to get to that point.

An Ivy League prospect after his career at Louisville (Ohio) High, Adams ended up choosing between Harvard and Yale, his academic abilities giving him a chance to prepare himself well for life after football while he kept pursuing the sport.

For a little while, it looked like Adams would become a star at Harvard. He established himself as a home run hitter as a sophomore in 2018, catching 18 passes for 278 yards, adding 131 yards on six rushes and scoring four touchdowns.

But the truth was he needed a break.

“I actually took a leave of absence,” Adams said. “It was more like academic stuff, trying to take some time away from school and make sure I was in the best position possible (when I returned).”

Adams spent that season working in a marketing internship in Boston. During that time, he met Barry, a Massachusetts-based strength coach, and struck up a relationship, staying in shape for his return to the football field in 2020.

COVID-19 hit.

The Ivy League canceled its season. A single season away from the game had suddenly become two, and when the Ivy League finally opened its athletic doors again in the spring of 2021, Adams tore the ACL, first in March, then again in October after making three catches in two games.

“It’s been a roller coaster of a career,” Adams said. “Which is why that season at Butler was so important.”

17.7 yards per catch

Adams needed a chance to prove he could still play football.

“He needed film,” Uremovich said. “If you want to play after college, you have to have film, and you have to have production, and you can get that at Butler.”

When Adams first arrived in Indianapolis last fall, he wasn’t the player who would ultimately tear up the track at Harvard’s pro day, putting him on the radars of the Colts and New England Patriots.

Adams was still only eight to nine months removed from tearing his ACL a second time.

“The thing I remember most about him is what a hard worker, what a leader he was,” Uremovich said. “He honestly is faster now than he was when he got here in August. … Believe it or not, it just doesn’t happen. Even if they clear you to play, it doesn’t mean you’re exactly in your top physical condition.”

Adams didn’t have to be full strength to make an impact for the Bulldogs last fall.

Finally able to be used again as a big-play weapon, Adams led Butler with 689 yards on just 39 catches, added five touchdowns and most importantly, stayed healthy for all 11 games, a key for a player coming off a twice-torn ACL.

“It meant absolutely everything,” Adams said. “If I wanted any kind of opportunity, I was going to have to put out some good film and prove that I can be productive coming off an ACL and stay healthy.”

4.43 seconds

Adams was still a long shot to make the NFL.

He had to head back to Harvard to catch the league’s attention. Butler typically does not hold a pro day, so Adams went back to his old stomping grounds and tore up the track, running the 40-yard dash in 4.43 seconds and bench-pressing 225 pounds 23 times.

“Really, just thankful they gave me the chance,” Adams said. “Because otherwise, I don’t know if I would have had an opportunity to do a pro day.”

There were no Colts scouts at Harvard’s pro day.

But Adams knew his workout might get him another shot to get in front of Indianapolis eyes. The Colts invited him to the team’s local pro day, trying out along with dozens of other draft hopefuls with local ties, guys of every talent level.

“I knew that was kind of my opportunity, with them being down the road, to do what I did at Harvard’s pro day,” Adams said. “But I felt like, coming out of there, I got to meet with (Reggie) Wayne that day, and I kind of developed a good relationship with him, and kind of kept in touch with some of their scouting department. I definitely felt like going into the draft, that would be a pretty good fit, so I think there was an idea that it could be a place I ended up.”

Adams didn’t get drafted.

Didn’t get signed to a contract as an undrafted free agent. All the Colts promised was a tryout at the team’s rookie minicamp last weekend, and although Adams’ agency, Overtime Sports Management Group, likely would have tried to get him a tryout at another team’s rookie minicamp this weekend if he hadn’t made it, Adams was focused on making the Colts.

“My main objective was to get signed and stay in Indy,” Adams said.

Adams smartly focused on more than just his skills as a wide receiver.

Any undrafted free agent who gets a chance in the NFL has to have a chance to be effective on special teams, and Adams put his combination of strength and straight-line speed to work.

“I really enjoyed working with our special teams coaches, trying to work around where I could fit on whatever they need me to be on,” Adams said. “Just be as useful as I can, be a Swiss Army knife.”

Indianapolis let Adams know Sunday, the final day of their rookie minicamp, that they’d likely be signing him if the background and medical checks came back clear.

Adams was signed Monday morning.

He called his family first, then Barry.

Then his coaches at Harvard and Butler.

‘You can get to the NFL from Butler’

Adams landing a contract with the Colts is enormous for Butler.

Uremovich is in the beginning of a hard undertaking at Butler. The Bulldogs won seven games last season, but the team drew little attention, the kind of attention Uremovich needs to lure recruits to Indianapolis.

“You’ve got to win to get noticed; one way to get noticed is to have players go to the NFL, the other way is we have to win our conference and start playing in playoff games, we’ll get more attention,” Uremovich said. “Until then, it is what it is. … Now, when we talk to other guys, talk to high school teams in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, we can say, you can get to the NFL from Butler. You don’t have to walk on at Purdue to do it.”

Both Uremovich and Adams are convinced that he doesn’t get this shot with the Colts without his final season in Indianapolis.

“His best shot to go the NFL was coming to Butler and putting up the numbers that he did,” Uremovich said. “Had he gone to some ‘bigger’ school and caught 10 balls, played on special teams, I don’t think he would’ve gotten the opportunity.”

Adams agrees.

It was the last, final step in his long, winding journey to an NFL shot.

A season away from football, a season lost to COVID, two torn ACLs in one calendar year, surgeries in Boston, training in Georgia, landing at Butler, running fast at Harvard’s Pro Day, catching the Colts’ eye at a local pro day, making a rookie minicamp tryout count.

“It means everything,” Adams said. “That all got me to this point.”

A shot in the NFL.

As unlikely as the road that got him here.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: How Butler helped Tyler Adams overcome two torn ACLs, land deal