Ferric Collons (born December 4, 1969) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player for the

California Golden Bears The California Golden Bears are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Berkeley. Referred to in athletic competition as ''California'' or ''Cal'', the university fields 30 varsity athletic programs and various club te ...

(1987-1991) and

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

(1995-1999).

Early years

Collons was born in 1969 at

Scott Air Force Base Scott Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in St. Clair County, Illinois, near Belleville and O'Fallon, east-southeast of downtown St. Louis. Scott Field was one of thirty-two Air Service training camps established after the U ...

St. Clair County, Illinois St. Clair County is the oldest county in Illinois; its western border is formed by the Mississippi River, bordering Missouri. It is a part of the Metro East in southern Illinois. At the 2020 United States census, it had a population of 257,400 ...

. He attended Jesuit High School in the suburbs of

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

, and then enrolled at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

. He played college football for Cal from 1987 to 1991.

Professional football

Collons was not selected in the

1992 NFL Draft The 1992 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 26–27, 1992, at the Marriott Mar ...

and worked for the next two years as a bar bouncer and for the

United Parcel Service United Parcel Service (UPS, stylized as ups) is an American multinational corporation, multinational package delivery, shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company ...

. He was a practice squad player for the

Los Angeles Raiders The Los Angeles Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1994 before relocating back to Oakland, California, where the team played from its inaugural 1960 season to the 1981 season and then agai ...

in 1992. He returned to the Raiders in 1994, but he was cut before the regular season. He was one of the first players signed by the

Jacksonville Jaguars The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida. The Jaguars compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. The team play ...

in 1994 but was released and then claimed briefly by the

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...

. He signed with the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

in 1995 and played for the Packers in preseason games. In August 1995, Collons was traded by the Packers to the New England Patriots. He remained with the Patriots from 1995 to 1999. He was a member of the 1996 Patriots team that won the AFC championship and lost to the Packers in

Super Bowl XXXI Super Bowl XXXI was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Green Bay Packers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champio ...

. Collons sacked quarterback

Brett Favre Brett Lorenzo Favre ( ; born October 10, 1969) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 20 seasons, primarily with the Green Bay Packers. Favre had 321 consecutive starts from 1992 to 20 ...

in the Super Bowl, and in April 1997, he signed a contract to play two more years for the Patriots for $1.25 million. He was released by the Patriots after the 1998 season but returned in 1999 after signing a one-year free agent contract for the veteran minimum of $400,000. Over five NFL seasons, Collons appeared in a total of 64 NFL games, 27 as a starter, and registered 7.5 sacks.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collons, Ferric 1969 births Living people Sportspeople from Belleville, Illinois Players of American football from St. Clair County, Illinois American football defensive ends California Golden Bears football players New England Patriots players