Ashley Lelie

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Ashley Lelie
San Francisco 49ersNo. 18
Wide receiver
Date of birth: February 16, 1980 (1980-02-16) (age 28)
Place of birth: Bellflower, California
Height:ft 3 in (1.91 m) Weight: 193 lb (88 kg)
National Football League debut
2002 for the Denver Broncos
Career history
College: Hawaii
NFL Draft: 2002 / Round: 1 / Pick: 19
 Teams:
Career highlights and awards
  • No notable achievements
Selected NFL statistics
(through Week 17 of the 2007 NFL season)
Receptions     206
Receiving yards     3,552
Receiving average     17.2
Receiving TDs     13
Stats at NFL.com

Ashley Jovon Lelie (pronounced /luh-LEE/) (born February 16, 1980, in Bellflower, California) is an American football wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League. He was originally drafted by the Denver Broncos 19th overall in the 2002 NFL Draft. He played college football at Hawaii.

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[edit] High school career

Lelie attended Radford High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, and was a three-sport standout in football, track, and basketball. In football, he won All-District and All-State honors. In basketball, he won All-District honors and in track, he won an All-League honors. He was also an excellent student and made his high school's honor roll every semester of his high school years.

[edit] College career

Lelie finished his career at the University of Hawaiʻi as its all-time leader receiving yards (3,341) and touchdown receptions (32) while averaging an impressive 17.2 yards per catch. He was a first-team All-Western Athletic Conference selection as a junior in 2001, his final year at the school, and broke the WAC single-season records for receiving yards (1,713) and touchdowns (19) while also tying the WAC record for most 200-yard games in a season (3). He ranked first in the conference and second in the nation in yards per game (142.8 avg.) and ranked third in the WAC and ninth in the nation in receptions per game (7.0 avg.) as a junior.

Ashley Lelie became the highest draft pick in Hawaiʻi Warriors Football program history when the Denver Broncos selected him with the 19th pick in the first round of the 2002 NFL Draft. He also became the first Hawaiʻi player to be drafted in the first round of any NFL Draft.

[edit] Pro career

Lelie was selected by the Denver Broncos in the first round (19th overall) of the 2002 NFL Draft. Lelie was selected based on his potential as a deep threat. That potential was never realized in Denver.

[edit] Denver fallout and trade to Atlanta

The relationship between Lelie and the Broncos began to sour during the 2006 offseason. It is believed that there were two actions taken by the Broncos that irritated Lelie. The first was the speculation that the Broncos were interested in acquiring disgruntled wide receiver Terrell Owens to bolster their receiving corps. The other action occurred during the 2006 NFL Draft, when the Broncos traded for former Green Bay Packers receiver Javon Walker. Lelie was irritated by the Broncos' decision to pick up Walker, as Lelie felt he would have no chance to earn a starting position on the team, with both Rod Smith and Walker the likely number one and two receivers. Lelie threatened to skip all organized team activities and training camp until he was either released or traded to another team.

On August 22, 2006, the Broncos sent Lelie to the Atlanta Falcons in a three-team trade which also involved the Washington Redskins. The trade to the Falcons ended a lengthy and costly offseason holdout for Lelie, who skipped all of Denver's offseason conditioning programs and did not report to training camp. Lelie was being fined at the rate of $14,000 per day, the maximum permitted, during his camp holdout. The total fines for his camp absence came to $378,000. Lelie also lost a $100,000 workout bonus because he did not participate in offseason workouts. There is speculation that Lelie also had to repay the Broncos a prorated portion of his $3.3 million signing bonus, which would amount to $660,000 for the five years he was under contract with the Broncos (the sixth year of his contract was voided when he reached certain incentives.) The total amount of money Lelie gave up to Broncos in order to be traded is around $982,000. After going to court he was ordered to pay only $23,000 in fines.[1]

After having an unremarkable year with Atlanta in 2006, Lelie has bought out his last year of contract with the Falcons to become a free agent in March of 2007.

[edit] San Francisco 49ers

On March 3, 2007 Lelie signed a 2 year deal with the 49ers for $4.3 million, including a $2 million signing bonus.

[edit] NFL Statistics

    Receiving   Rushing
Season Team G GS Rec Yards AVG LG TD 20+ Att Yds TD
2002 Denver 16 1 35 525 15.0 48 2 12 4 40 0
2003 Denver 16 10 37 628 17.0 60 2 16 8 43 0
2004 Denver 16 16 54 1084 20.1 58 7 26 3 5 0
2005 Denver 16 13 42 770 18.3 56 1 17 5 84 0
2006 Atlanta 15 10 28 430 15.4 51 1 6 0 0 0
2007 49ers 15 3 10 115 11.5 47 0 0 0 0 0
Totals 68 42 175 3143 18.0 60 13 74 20 172 0

(*current season)

[edit] External links