When the Tennessee Titans drafted Cortland Finnegan out of Samford in the seventh round in 2006, they knew they were getting a good athlete and a player with some football ability.

Finnegan, after all, had been the Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year as a senior in the Division I-AA conference.

What they could not have known at the time was that they were getting a player who would, in just over two years, become an integral part of a top-five defense and the top cornerback on the team.

After all, the Titans at the time had to have believed that player on their roster was the mercurial Adam "Pacman" Jones.

While Jones and his laundry list of problems have been shipped off to Dallas, the Titans are quite happy with the way things panned out with Finnegan, the 215th pick from the 2006 draft. So much so that last week, they signed him to a four-year extension worth a reported $16.8 million that will keep him in a Titans uniform through 2011.

"I'm just super-excited. Me and my mom talked about it this morning. We just cried. It was definitely a humbling thing, and hard work does pay off," Finnegan told reporters after the Titans' preseason win over Oakland on Friday, the same day the deal was completed.

Finnegan's climb has been a bit stunning at first, even to the Titans staff who have been watching his hard work. But it didn't take them long to realize what sort of player they had once he arrived in that first camp.

"He's probably come farther than where we drafted him, but honestly, when he got here, I think pretty quickly we recognized we had more than a seventh-round draft pick from a I-AA school," defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said. "He really blossomed. The surprise ended when he got here."

Now with his future secure, Finnegan still has goals he wants to accomplish. Of course, team goals are first, but the third-year cornerback would one day like to earn Pro Bowl honors. He said as much at the start of camp.

"The Pro Bowl is definitely one of my goals," Finnegan said. "It's a team game, and I definitely feel like if the team does well, I could go to the Pro Bowl, but yes, that's one of my goals and I want to attain it, because it will make the team better as well."

It is a goal that his coaches believe is definitely attainable for Finnegan.

"His game is solid right now," Titans coach Jeff Fisher said. "He doesn't have any glaring weaknesses in his game. He runs well, he plays the ball well, he's aggressive, he knows what to do. ... I think he's got the skill set to be one of the top corners in the league, and I would expect him to keep improving."

Finnegan was not only the Titans' top cover corner last year, but was strong in run support as well, being credited with 109 tackles. Schwartz already regards Finnegan among the best corners in the NFL.

"I think by midway through the year, he was probably already there," Schwartz said. "I think if you talk to wide receivers in the league, they'll probably tell you that. The one thing about Cortland is he doesn't make a whole lot of mistakes twice. He figures things out really quickly. ... I don't think you have to wait for him to be in the upper echelon. He was there."

CAMP CALENDAR
Training camp closes Wednesday.

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