Donovan Morgan has been trying to earn his way back to the National Football League for more than a year. On Monday, he said he could stand to wait a few more weeks.
With two NFL offers in hand, the record-setting receiver said he will stay with the Tulsa Talons until their af2 season ends. Morgan will be in uniform when the Talons host Rio Grande Valley at 7 p.m. Saturday in a National Conference semifinal game.
"I just feel I shouldn't leave my teammates," Morgan said. "After all, I helped to get them here to this point, and I made a promise to myself and to my deceased brother (Travis) that I was going to finish this thing the right way, by winning a championship."
Morgan has tried out for four NFL teams since the Talons ended the regular season on July 30.
On Monday, he mulled offers from the Houston Texans and Miami Dolphins while flying home from a tryout with the Kansas City Chiefs at their training camp in River Falls, Wis.
After landing in Tulsa, Morgan notified his agent that he had conferred with his mother and grand mother and decided to stay with the Talons.
"He said he didn't want to feel like he was abandoning his teammates," agent Martin Prince said.
Prince said the Dolphins and Texans had indicated a willingness to wait on Morgan if the Talons advance to the ArenaCup game on Aug. 27.
But Prince said his client is gambling against an injury that might damage his value, or simply against time. NFL teams have about four weeks until they must cut to their 53-man regular-season roster.
"Every day of training camp he misses is one more day of repetitions that another player is getting," Prince said.
Morgan said he has another timetable.
"Everybody's saying this a chance for me to win (an NFL) spot, but God gave me this ability, and if it's meant for me to win a spot, then I'll win it, regardless of when I go," Morgan said.
Morgan would have required a release from his Talons contract, but that's a formality in the af2 for players of Morgan's stature.
Talons co-owner Paul Ross said Monday that he would gladly grant such a release.
"I'm stunned," said Talons head coach Dave Alexander. "I'm not sure it's the right decision for him, but if he's thought about it and that's what he wants to do, we're excited to have him."
Morgan signed with the New York Jets after his sophomore year at Pearl River (Miss.) Community College in 2003, but sustained a severe elbow injury while relegated to NFL Europe and needed most of 2004 to recover.
He tried out for the Arena Football League's Las Vegas Gladiators in January before landing in Tulsa. Morgan set af2 records for touchdown receptions (54), total TDs (57) and points scored (346) while leading Tulsa to a West Division title and a first-round playoff bye.
