Former Purdue star adjusts to NFL

By Chad Husted

Assistant Sports Editor

NFL rookie Dustin Keller has always wanted to dunk a football through the goalposts to celebrate a touchdown. When he got his chance on Sunday, he realized it may not have been such a good idea.

"The next thing I think, I just caught this touchdown pass from a living legend, Brett Favre," Keller said. "I went to the ref and said, 'Where's that ball at?' He said, 'You dunked it ... you dunk the ball, it's gone.'"

The former Purdue tight end and first-round draft pick for the New York Jets has had several of those moments in his short time in the NFL. One of the fun adjustments for Keller is playing against other former Boilermakers, like Arizona's Chike Okefor on Sunday.

Another one was the announcement of quarterback Brett Favre and his powerful arm joining the Jets, and the need to buy stock in football gloves.

"I never thought I'd get to play with one of the all-time greats," Keller said. "I couldn't ask for a better situation, or a better guy to learn from.

"I've had to go through numerous amounts of gloves. I get new ones every day, and they get ripped every day ... which gets kind of expensive, so I'm going to give him the bill."

Through four weeks of the season, Keller has caught six of Favre's passes, two of them for touchdowns. But to get to see the field in the NFL, it took a lot of work before the season learning just how exact NFL offenses are.

"The amount of time you spend in the film room and the preciseness of everything," he said. "(In college) you're not going into that deep, specific stuff where, on third down and six, what are their tendencies, what do they like to do. They don't get that deep into it."

Outside of football, adjusting to life on the east coast has also been a long process for Keller. The Lafayette native has been living in New Jersey since four months before the season started, living in hotels and dorms until he found the house he's recently moved in to.

He's also kept family close, as Keller's brother, Drew, is living with him and handling his marketing and outside-of-football needs.

"It's been a big change; people move a lot faster, talk a lot faster," he said. "If you think that there's five o'clock traffic in Lafayette or Indianapolis, you've got another thing coming."

With all of the changes that Keller has seen in his life, he's shown that he can adjust and perform with other NFL players. But he is now a professional football player, and that may be the most important adjustment.

"You get to this level, it's no longer a job, like something to do while you look for the work that you're going to be doing. It's your work, it's your occupation, it's how you make a living."

Published by the Purdue Exponent on October 2, 2008