Ovie Mughelli played five seasons with the Atlanta Falcons as a fullback. Originally drafted out of Wake Forest by the Baltimore Ravens, he earned All-Pro honors in both 2006 and 2010.
It was great to catch up with Ovie earlier.
Craig: It’s schedule release day!. Was that something that you anticipated as a player, or did it really matter?
Ovie: Towards the end of my career, I really liked the international games. Throughout 2010-2012, we were going overseas to London. I loved going overseas and it was a free trip! (laughs) Those were amazing. I loved seeing the new culture and food and so I was excited for that. Also, west coast trips were fun. I like traveling, always enjoyed going to the new cities.
Craig: We've all had a few months to digest the 24' season. How do you feel about how things played out?
Ovie: I feel really good because you can point to one singular thing that tanked our season and that was Kirk Cousins trying to play injured (after the Saints game in week 10). His performance just fell off the ledge and I do not understand why he didn't at a certain point realize that he was hurting the team by continuing to play.
Craig: What's crazy is I don't think at any point the last several weeks he actually appeared on the official injury report.
Ovie: Someone, the GM, the QB Coach, the Head Coach, needed to say Kirk I know you want to play, but you're struggling in key parts of games and we're losing games. If you take those bad performances out of the equation, the defense got better and started to sack people during the second half of the season and there were positives developing.
Craig: How do you feel about Michael Pennix Jr. heading into year two?
Ovie: That's a great question. I think he's going to be everything we've been looking for and have wanted. If you just look at his maturity, he made the rookie mistakes but also progressed at a really good pace. I don't think there's any sophomore slump for him, he's just too smart for that.
Craig: Do you wish your career had overlapped with Bijan Robinson's? He's a beast.
Ovie: Bijan is someone who makes fullbacks look good. He makes people miss; he's doing Barry Sanders type stuff. I see the resemblances there; he has flashes of that in his game. Can he do it now consistently, and do it when we need to score? I think he can, but those are the questions. I wish I could've blocked for him, but I had some great guys, just think about Jerious Norwood and Michael Turner.
Craig: What did it mean to go to Hawaii and make that Pro Bowl with Atlanta towards the backend of your career?
Ovie: To become the first pro bowl fullback in Atlanta Falcons franchise history was huge. I went with Michael Turner and he had been recognized, so to do it with my tailback was extra special. When I got to the pro bowl, it meant everything. I always looked up to Moose Johnston and Mike Alstott, Max Strong and Lorenzo Neal. To get the nod meant a whole lot to me because it gave extra credibility to my being the highest paid fullback at the time.
Craig: As I recall, they paid you all that money and you didn't play much in the first year. It was bizarre.
Ovie: Boy that first year was disastrous. That was the Michael Vick dog scandal, Bobby Petrino leaving early and only won a few games and people were looking at me like I was the reason we were losing. They were upset and not happy. There were games where we were losing by three touchdowns in the second quarter, I'd be on the bench because we're playing five wide and there were entire games where I'd only play like seven total plays. They gave me 18 million dollars, 5 million guaranteed (no one had ever gotten that much) and I'd just sit there. So to have the rough start, fans gave it to me hard, and then to make that pro bowl meant a lot to me.