He looks in the mirror each morning and marvels at what the Good Lord has given him, thanks Him for the gift and promises he will use his body to its fullest potential.
Then he flips on the radio and hears what a disappointment he has been.
It is a perception Alonzo Spellman has lived with almost since the day he was drafted by the Bears. How can this player, this physical specimen, not be tearing up the National Football League? When is the athlete going to catch up to the player? And what is all his constant jabbering about?
If anyone has been listening lately, he has been busy with the usual–guaranteeing victories, trash-talking, cheerleading.
If anyone has been watching lately, he has been coming a whole lot closer to backing it up.
“He is definitely the most physical player I’ve played against this year,” says Packers rookie left tackle John Michels, who has gone up against the likes of Pro Bowl defensive linemen Derrick Thomas and Alfred Williams, and New England’s Willie McGinest. “He brings it every single play.”
After struggling through four games early in the season with a cast protecting a dislocated finger on his left hand, Spellman has steadily improved, recording one sack in each of the last four games from the tackle spot, leading the team in quarterback pressures and continuing to be a force against the run at right end.
But if Bears fans are still waiting for the second coming of Dan Hampton or Richard Dent, says Spellman, he is not the one to pity.
“It’s not hard on me, I think it’s hard on them,” Spellman says of disappointed fans. “If they would just look at me and say, `That’s Alonzo, this is the way he plays, this is what he’s going to do,’ and stop wanting me to go out on the field and dance with guys, it would be easier because I’m not going to do that.
“I’m not going to hold my emotion back and I’m not going to not point in somebody’s face. Just get used to it because that’s just the way I play. I might power a guy six times in a row and people have to get used to it.”
Lack of technique, or at least a lack of versatility, is among the most common criticisms of Spellman.
At right end, where Spellman returned this season after one season at left end, finesse is essential. And Spellman may never have it.
“He’s a stomper, not a dancer,” says one NFC Central scout. “He’s powerful, but you always know what you’re dealing with.”
That, however, is not necessarily a weakness, says Bears defensive line coach Clarence Brooks. “There are times when you have to move on a guy and times when you don’t,” he says. “Alonzo’s biggest asset as a pass rusher is his power and strength. So the first thing he’s going to do to a guy is make him respect the fact that he can run him over any time he wants.
“But he’ll power a guy, then get him to set heavy, get ready to take the blow, and bang, he’ll run around him. So he will change it up.”
But should Spellman have more sacks than his present total of seven, which ties him with Jim Flanigan for the lead among defensive linemen? Bears coach Dave Wannstedt reasons that without the cast, which cost him at least two sacks, and given two others wiped out by penalty, Spellman would be in double figures.
“I see him getting 14, 15 a season before long,” says Wannstedt.
“I think he’s a force,” says Paul Wiggin, Minnesota Vikings assistant general manager and a former All-Pro defensive end. “People always use sacks as a measure of the influence a player has on a game, but that isn’t always the truth. Certainly great players are going to have a lot of sacks and Spellman will have a lot of sacks in his career, but the important thing is, is he a force around the quarterback, and Spellman is.”
Spellman says it’s simply not that crucial and, again, maybe it’s up to others to adjust their perception of him.
“I know what I bring to the table when I walk out onto the field,” he says. “And most important is that they can’t run the ball at me at all. If I wasn’t stopping the run the way that I am, they would have so many different options.
“You want big sack numbers, but people tend to overlook so many other things I do on the field as far as the hustle, as far as the emotion, just all the small things that go into being a defensive end.”
Spellman, 6-foot-4-inches and 275 pounds, left Ohio State with a year of eligibility left and was the 22nd pick in the 1992 draft. Spellman, still only 25, was the last first-round pick of the Mike Ditka era.
Wannstedt says Spellman will probably never get the benefit of the doubt.
“He has three things he’s battling,” Wannstedt says. “His draft status of being a No. 1 pick, his size and appearance and a big contract. None of those things are his fault. And he’s trying to do everything to live up to the expectations he has of himself and the people of Chicago have of him.
“He’s trying to do everything he can. But they’ll be satisfied with Alonzo when they’ll be satisfied with Dave Wannstedt . . . and that’s when the Bears win a Super Bowl. That’s when everything will disappear.”
Spellman’s contract, signed last February for $11.6 million over four years–or an average of $2.9 million per year–came when the Bears matched the offer sheet of the Jacksonville Jaguars. In all, 18 teams expressed an interest in Spellman, who said the big numbers never intimidated him.
“I had so much confidence when I walked into the negotiating room, I knew what I was going to do the next season,” he says. “And it was pretty clear because the deal with the Jaguars was done immediately and I knew they could see that confidence.”
Confidence, needless to say, has never been a problem. But the swagger and the chatter that goes with it, says Spellman, has been carefully honed since his rookie year, when he studied the game-day personnas of players such as Dent, whom he saw as a mentor, Steve McMichael and William Perry.
“It was a whirlwind my first year,” says Spellman, “but I learned a whole lot and the biggest thing was the kind of attitude and mindset you have to have, an I-don’t-care-what-happens kind of an attitude. Chicago doesn’t see those things. Our fans don’t really understand that.
“The mindset I have towards playing the game is totally different than a lot of young guys–that you must destroy the guy in front of you; that every single play, he has got to know that today, you’re going to take him to school.”
Spellman likes to fashion himself tougher than his opponents and his contemporaries.
“I pulled muscles in my stomach this season that our trainers didn’t even know about,” he said. “On Sunday, I prepare to go to war. It’s serious. Everything I’m saying on the field I mean it 100 percent.”
Michels can attest that’s a big part of Spellman’s game.
“He’s a guy who really tries to use intimidation to his favor,” Michels says. “He’ll talk to you and he has those eyes staring down at you and he tries to get into your head. And it can be unsettling if you’re not careful.”
Against Green Bay, Spellman demanded to know why they weren’t running to his side. After a sack, he promised three more. Of course, it didn’t happen and the Packers were the ones with the last laugh. But Wannstedt says he doesn’t object to Spellman’s tactics.
“As long as it’s a guy who’s out there playing and laying it on the line like he does, it doesn’t bother me at all,” Wannstedt says.
What’s more, he adds, he gained an extra measure of respect for Spellman after he was injured.
“Minnesota’s driving to kick the winning field goal (in the fourth game of the season),” Wannstedt recalls, “and he’s standing next to me on the sideline with his ligaments ripped out of his hand and he’s wanting to go into the game and our doctors are saying, `No, you can’t go in or you may never be able to use your hand again.’ “
Given the choice of surgery or wearing a cast and playing with pain, Spellman opted for the latter.
“And he never missed a practice and never missed a snap in the game,” says Wannstedt. “That was the first time since I’ve been here that he had an injury and he took the approach, `I’ll play hurt and I’ll do what I can do’ and that made an impression on not just me, but everybody.”
He was an athlete, Spellman said, before he was anything. As a 12th grader, he was 6-4, 265 pounds, just 10 pounds less than he is today.
“It was a curse then,” he says with a laugh. “I was 17 years old and people were like, `This guy’s a grown man, he’s going to kill people.’ But mentally, I wasn’t there yet. I didn’t have technique. I was just a big, strong, fast guy and I’d just run into you every single play until you gave up. That’s what I did.”
Now, however, Spellman says solemnly, he believes he is finally a football player.
“I know that I have the ability to do great, great, great things on the field,” he says. “I could have done those things this year until I lost (use of) my hand. But I just know that with the right guys around me, and I hope we keep all the guys on the D-line, I can take this thing so, so much further. I can be so much better than I am now. As far as my technique goes, as far as my power goes, everything. That’s exciting. It would be a sin for me not to be excited about the ability I have.”
