This one’s for the dreamers, for the schemers — for anyone who chased their life’s ambition to a soundtrack of slamming doors and regular heartache, year after year.
Michael Palardy tried out with 28 NFL teams without success. He was cut by the then-Oakland Raiders the day after an appendectomy. He didn’t stick in a mass tryout with the Miami Dolphins. He was cut by the Ottawa Roughriders because of the Canadian league’s allowed ratio of Americans.
For three empty years, Palardy kept the dream alive with the paycheck of his wife, Lexie, and substitute teaching at his former school, St. Thomas Aquinas.
He’d rush to Mullins Park after teaching math or science to kids and provide a personal lesson in persistence by working for hours on the field he first played with his eighth-grade Coral Springs Chargers.
In 2016 alone, he was signed and released by six teams, including the one he later stuck with, the Carolina Panthers. He made it. He got a nice contract the next season. For four years he lived the dream he chased so hard.
Only that wasn’t the happily-ever-after ending.
It was the opening act to his next challenge.
“I was playing around and I just stepped wrong and I fell and collapsed to the ground,’’ Palardy, 29, said of a basketball game last July.
The anterior-cruciate ligament in his left, punting knee tore. Just like that his dream was gone. He couldn’t play in 2020. He watched as Carolina found a replacement who had a good year. Palardy’s release in February was mere bookkeeping.
All along, Palardy worked to bring his knee back to life. And worked.
“It was a tough year,’’ said Tim Conrad, who was Palardy’s kicking coach starting at St. Thomas and through his signing with Carolina. “He went from being mentioned for the Pro Bowl to being out of work and unsure of his career.”
Palardy wasn’t back to full health when teams began calling in February. That was a good sign. Buffalo showed strong interest. Dolphins general manager Chris Grier brought him in, too.
“I meshed really well with what [the Dolphins] wanted to do and the intensity that they put on special teams,’’ Palardy said. “There’s a lot of value to that. That’s something that I hold near and dear to my heart; head coach, Coach [Brian] Flores, Coach [Danny] Crossman, the intensity that they put on the kicking game is something that I value. It was a good fit.”
Palardy, you see, has an interesting tool chest for a team that with creative special teams. It’s not just that he’s left-footed, though that’s such a rarity that when out of a job Conrad would regularly be flown in by teams facing a left-footed kicker the next game. They wanted their returners to practice catching the opposite spin of a right-footed kicker.
Let Conrad explain another part of Palardy’s skill set.
“Mike was never a 70-yard punter,’’ he said. “I think his longest is 63 yards. He’s in the 45-50 range. But he’s ridiculously accurate and extremely consistent. He’s a guy that’s going to put it 5 yards against the sideline so your gunners have a contained area to make the tackle.”
Palardy helped Conrad coach St. Thomas’s special teams during those years he looked for a job. He had a unique drill, too – “something that was absolutely phenomenal,’’ Conrad said. “He’d stand at the 20-yard line and punt to around the other 20.
“But he’d line up receivers to run routes. He’d punt 50 or 60 yards of a perfect spiral. It was like a quarterback throwing the ball, and it’d hit the receivers in stride. That’s what he can do with a ball – the kind of accuracy he has.”
Palardy also performed field goals and kickoffs in college at Tennessee. So there’s an emergency role — or for pooch and onside kicks, as Carolina used him. He also played quarterback for a while at St. Thomas. Remember the Dolphins’ fake field goal that resulted in a touchdown pass? That’s in play.
All of which means the Dolphins have an interesting punter — and the punter’s dream goes on. He has a new NFL home that must feel in some respects like an old home. It’s more than playing for his hometown team.
The former student teacher looks at his teammates and sees something odd. Jordan Scarlett, a running back, was one of his students while a substitute teacher at St. Thomas.
“He was a good student,’’ Palardy said. “At St. Thomas, the student athletes are held to a very high standard. They’re always very respectful.”
Palardy himself was a Sun Sentinel All-County first team selection in 2009.
All of it adds up to making his journey, “A nice full circle,’’ he says. His knee is healthy again. His career is alive again. The dream that started out on fields at Mullins Park and continues a few miles down the road.
