King Has 'Chip on His Shoulder'; Bruggeman Happy in Tampa Bay

Former Iowa defensive tackle Mitch King is fighting mad after not getting selected in the 2009 NFL draft.  According to Titans+rookie+values+heart+above+height">The Tennessean, King rejected multiple offers from other teams and instead joined the Titans because of defensive line coach Jim Washburn.

King, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 280 pounds, told the newspaper he thinks he wasn’t drafted because he’s too “short.” King, 22, was the Big Ten’s defensive lineman of the year last year.

“That’s probably why I wasn’t drafted,” he said. “But it makes me have a little bit bigger chip on my shoulder.”

King’s agent, Richard Rosa, told me last week that the interest was “overwhelming.”

“We weren’t dealing with scouts,” Rosa said. “We were dealing with coaches, general managers … at least two team presidents called him personally and said, ‘That’s a guy we have to have.’ There was tremendous interest for him.”

“I can’t deny that there were teams lining up. He had an unbelievable amount of interest from teams. Ultimately, Mitch got to pick the spot.”

Former Iowa center Rob Bruggeman was targeted as a seventh-round pick by Tampa Bay, but signed with the Buccaneers as a free agent. Bruggeman, a Cedar Rapids native, was a second-team all-Big Ten center last fall.

“I really like the system and the people down here,” Bruggeman told The Pewter Report. “Maybe that’s my Iowa roots coming through, but I just felt really comfortable with these people down here.”