If they were the jealous types, they would be . . . jealous. And who really could blame them? For the better part of the last two years, Rosevelt Colvin and Warrick Holdman have been the backup singers to Brian Urlacher, Genesis to Phil Collins but with less name recognition, and Urlacher understood.
“I’m sure initially they were both a little jealous because I was the No. 1 pick, the main focus and I hadn’t done [anything] and was still getting all this hype,” Urlacher said. “They had a right to feel that way, but now it doesn’t matter. We’re all the same. We’re all playing well and we’re all making plays.”
If they were the jealous types, Holdman and Colvin might not even want to be thought of as “the same.” Holdman arguably has played the run every bit as well as Urlacher, leading the team in tackles the first 12 games of the season. Colvin is probably a better pass-rusher and has a team-leading 9 1/2 sacks, mostly from the end spot on nickel downs, to prove it.
Urlacher, of course, does everything well and has the superior athletic ability to do it faster, harder and usually in more dramatic fashion.
The fact is, Holdman and Colvin are not the jealous types. Rather, they’re grateful, and so competitive with each other and Urlacher that it has elevated their play to the point that they are gaining recognition as one of the best linebacking groups in the NFL.
“Just the fact that he’s a good player makes us better,” said Holdman, whom Urlacher calls the “unsung hero” of the defense. “If we felt we couldn’t compete with him it would be different, but I think that’s what’s making us good because we know we can be just as good as he can be. If he makes 10 tackles, I’m going to make 11. That’s how I go into every game.”
Colvin likes to remind Urlacher that he beat him out for strong-side linebacker the first two games of Urlacher’s career, thus prompting the critical change to the middle.
“We always joke that he wouldn’t be the player he is today if it wasn’t for me,” Colvin said. “When Brian first got here, he felt like he was the only person on defense that could make a play. For the first 10 games he was trying to make every play, and when he does that he overruns the play, drops his coverage or does something he doesn’t need to do.
“Now he trusts us, and with us stepping up, he really doesn’t have to do that much.”
Both fourth-round picks in the 1999 draft engineered by Mark Hatley, Colvin and Holdman have turned out to be bargains–Colvin a converted end no one really thought would be anything more than an undersized pass rusher, and Holdman a quiet young man who needed only to be given a chance to move ahead of Barry Minter.
Colvin surprises
No other NFL team saw Colvin as a potential strong-side linebacker and, in fact, he was still an end at the end of his first pro mini-camp when the switch was made.
“Initially,” said defensive coordinator Greg Blache, “we thought he would be a guy we could train to play special teams and a backup [strong-side] linebacker. You don’t ever say we’re training a guy to be a backup, but you say he at least has to be a backup to make the roster.”
Colvin admits he was concerned about that very thing early on.
“My rookie year I was worried,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on. My second year, I don’t know if I thought I’d be cut but I felt I [had to] grab a hold on to something and show them something positive now.
“For me, it was two Sunday night games against Minnesota and Green Bay that even though we didn’t win, I thought I changed as a player. I suddenly went from being happy to be in the NFL to understanding that this is my profession, this is how I make my living and I need to craft it to be best that I can be.”
That crafting, say Bears coaches, is most responsible for Colvin’s development.
“The largest transition in the game is going from having your hand on the ground to standing erect,” linebackers coach Dale Lindsey said. “When your hand is down, the game is very fast and the play is over very quickly. Once you stand up, you have a longer involvement in the play and it’s more difficult to some degree. He still needs to improve his backpedaling, but it has gotten better every year.
“Most importantly, he has good instincts, good skills, good work habits, and he listens and retains information. He’s very, very smart.”
If you can come by that sort of thing naturally, Colvin does. One of two children born in Indianapolis to Rosevelt and Bessie, both teachers who relocated from their native Texas so that Bessie could attend graduate school, there was an obvious emphasis on education.
“He had to get his degree before going pro,” said Bessie Colvin, who received her master’s at Ball State. “He didn’t even think about getting drafted before he got his degree.”
He is still known as “Trip” at home and in his hometown. The doctor who delivered Rosevelt Colvin III suggested it to avoid confusion with his father and grandfather, and because “it took three trips to the hospital before he was delivered,” explained his father.
“Also,” said his mother, “because he really was a trip.”
Along with his many athletic honors, Colvin was a National Honor Society member and honor-roll student who graduated in the top 10 percent of his class at Broad Ripple High before going on to Purdue, where he was first-team All-Big Ten his senior year while graduating with a 3.4 grade-point average.
He is also a gifted singer, a talented basketball player and a great bowler. He was so serious-minded, despite his reputation now as one of the biggest talkers on the field, that his father jokes:
“He was kind of boring, nothing I can think of that was even embarrassing.”
There was one thing, though. The elder Colvin did challenge a then-10-year-old Trip to play sports at a major college.
“Colvin men don’t make it that far,” Rosevelt II said. “Maybe you can play sports as a hobby.”
“Ever since then,” Bessie said, “he has been trying to prove to his daddy and to me that he could do it.”
Holdman shows desire
It was the same sort of drive that motivated Holdman, who shares the Colvins’ Texas roots.
“Ever since I was a little kid, I never wanted to let anybody outshine me or do better,” said Holdman, an All-American linebacker at Elsik High in Alief, Texas, and an honorable-mention All-American at Texas A&M.
“I wanted to be in on every tackle. My mama always used to say I was a spoiled sport and a sore loser because I was the guy, if I didn’t have the most tackles, I’d come home and be ready to cry. She’d say, `You can’t be like that. There’s always going to be somebody better. You just have to work harder.’ But I didn’t know that then. I was just ready to break into tears. That’s just how I was.”
Dreams of being the NFL defensive rookie of the year, however, soon were reduced to more realistic expectations.
“When I got here, there were guys who had been here a while and I was like, `Oh, man, I just want to make the team now.'”
Confidence, he said, was paramount.
“It’s believing you can do it,” he said. “I felt that at the end of my rookie year. I said, `If I study and work harder, I can do this.’ Then the second year, stuff started to become more familiar, more natural. Then I got hurt and I felt like I had to start all over again.”
A knee injury sidelined Holdman for the last six games of last season and he reinjured it in training camp.
“I just felt I was having bad luck and felt kind of down,” Holdman said. “Rosey and Brian helped me just because they were playing so well, I wanted to get in the mix. They helped me feel like I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself.”
Their rapport is a non-stop barrage of one-upmanship and playful put-downs, an energy that directly translates to their on-field play.
“I like the way they interact with one another,” Lindsey said. “The two guys on the outside are not jealous of the big guy in the middle and he’s certainly not the kind of guy who ever flaunts his good fortune.”
Playing as a unit
Unless, of course, that good fortune has to do with playing between Holdman and Colvin.
“We have so much fun because it seems like one of us three is always making a play,” Urlacher said.
“I know there are a lot of good [linebacking groups] out there, but I think we’re definitely right there.
“As young as we are and as quickly as we’ve come along in this defense, if we stay together, I think we definitely have a chance to be one of the best.”
Part of that will depend on the Bears re-signing Colvin and Holdman, both unrestricted free agents after this season.
“Hopefully we can lock them up as soon as possible,” Urlacher said. “I’d love to play with them the rest of my career. They’re so fun and they do the right things. Right now we’re starting to get a feel for each other and I think the more we play together, it’s only going to get better.”
