Doubting Thomas?

Ex-UF standout looks to convince NFL teams he's past drug problem.

By MICHAEL DIROCCO, The Times-Union

Marcus Thomas smoked marijuana, failed two drug tests and was kicked off the football team during his senior season at the University of Florida.

He admits those were stupid things to do, and they cost him dearly. He sat home and watched his former teammates win the Southeastern Conference and national championships.

The former Mandarin High School standout insists he doesn't have a drug problem and isn't a discipline case, and he has spent the past three-and-a-half months trying to prove that.

What he does at the NFL Combine, which begins today and runs through Tuesday in Indianapolis, could go a long way toward repairing his reputation.

Thomas is a first-round talent, a 6-foot-3, 317-pound defensive tackle who finished his Gators career with 14 sacks. However, the questions about his positive drug tests and decision to not follow the conditions mandated by Florida to remain on the team could have a huge impact on his NFL Draft status.

"I've been doing everything, just trying to show people the real me," Thomas said after a recent workout at Velocity Sports Performance. "I'm just going to put it in the Lord's hands. Whatever happens, happens."

Thomas and his agent - J. Richard Burnoski, his former head coach at Mandarin - aren't just leaving the player's draft future up to divine intervention. They have aggressively attacked the image of Thomas as a pot-smoking head case who cares little about his teammates and has no respect for authority.

Since Nov. 1, Thomas has taken and passed weekly drug tests administered by a Jacksonville doctor, and Burnoski said he will release those results to any NFL team that asks. Burnoski also said Thomas is taking part in weekly counseling sessions with a local pastor and is being mentored by New York Jets wide receiver and former Ribault standout Laveranues Coles, who was dismissed from the Florida State football team in 1999 because of legal and academic problems.

Most importantly, Burnoski said, is that Thomas isn't avoiding the drug issue.

"If you lie one time, you've got to lie 32 times," Burnoski said. "The thing is, you've got a drug issue, and now you've got a courtesy issue, because [an NFL team official will say], 'This guy looks in my eye and lied to me. Now you're a liar, and you use drugs.' The best thing to do is be honest, get it all on the table and just move forward with it."

That's the approach Thomas and Burnoski have taken with the teams that have called: the Tennessee Titans, Washington Redskins, Indianapolis Colts, Denver Broncos and Chicago Bears. Each team official asked the question.

"They've been at me hard, trying to see what's going on, why I had made the decisions I had made," said Thomas, who denied reports of a strained relationship with Florida coaches. "I just pretty much put it out there, let them know it's all in the past. ... All it did was make me a more mature person. I'm trying to let them feel me out and see the real me and not what's been written and what they see on TV."

Thomas also is making a guarantee to any team he speaks with: He won't use drugs again. To back that up, he's willing to submit to drug tests and tie his signing bonus or part of his salary to the results.

"We'll put it in writing," Burnoski said. "That's how confident we are. That's how we can tell you it's not going to happen again. We'll put our money where our mouth is, and if it does happen again, it's going to hurt us a lot worse than you."

Thomas will bring up all these issues during interviews with team officials during the combine, and what happens in those meetings might be much more important than workouts.

Those should be impressive. Thomas is consistently running the 40-yard dash in the 4.7-second range, and he bench-pressed 255 pounds 26 times - but the impression he makes likely will determine if he'll be a first-round pick or not.

Thomas said he would understand if he did drop to the lower rounds.

"I can't be mad at nobody but myself for putting myself in that situation, but that'd be a blessing if I'm in the first round," he said. "Once I get out there, I know I'm going to perform."