Where Are They Now: Willie Colon

Becoming a free agent in 2013 following seven seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers and helping them win Super Bowl XLIII, it took less time to have a pizza delivered than it did for Jets Head Coach Rex Ryan to reach out to the veteran guard from the Bronx, Willie Colon.

“There was speculation about a couple other teams, but I was really a free agent for like 20 minutes,” Colon said. “I got a call from Rex and he was like, ‘Hey, man, we know you’re a New Yorker. It’s time to come home.’ I played against him when he was with Baltimore and the Jets, so we knew of each other. It was just a matter of me going home and seeing if the New York Jets was going to be a fit for me.”

Even though he grew up as a Giants fan and credits Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor as one of the reasons why he played football, Colon and the Jets had a history even before Ryan picked up the phone – Hofstra University.

A student-athlete when the Jets were based there, Colon, who was named as a first-team I-AA All-American by the Walter Camp Foundation, Associated Press, and the American Football Coaches Association as a senior, knew the pros were there because they had a job to do.

“We were fortunate enough at the time when I was there that Herm Edwards was there (as the Head Coach),” Colon said. “He would go for a run around the campus and occasionally would come by and just kind of drop words of inspiration and wisdom to the team.

“Obviously, the Jets, considering they were on campus, we would always see Santana Moss, (Vinny) Testaverde, (Kevin) Mawae, and those guys while they were in their heyday. But I never had any one-on-one conversations with those guys. You just knew who they were. You’re a young college kid and you’re playing college football, you know who the pros are, and you try to just give them their space.”

While Colon was essentially getting a fresh start by signing with the Jets, they were, in a sense,…