DeKALB | Chicagoland doesn’t have to say goodbye to running back Garrett Wolfe just yet, but several other NIU players are moving on.

On Saturday, the Chicago Bears took Wolfe with the 93rd pick in the third round of the 2007 NFL Draft. Wolfe became the highest-drafted player during coach Joe Novak’s era.

However, the Chicago native’s feel-good hometown story was not the last of the NFL Draft news NIU’s football team would receive this weekend.

On Sunday, offensive tackle Doug Free was swept up by the Dallas Cowboys with the 122nd overall pick in the fourth round.

Two other Huskies signed free- agent deals.

Phil Horvath will be competing for a quarterback spot with the Detroit Lions while tight end Jake Nordin is headed off to play for the New England Patriots. The status of defensive end Ken West was not known as of press time.

Before the draft, many analysts predicted Doug Free would be selected before Wolfe, but the Wisconsin native did not let an unpredicted slide to the fourth round ruin his day-of-days.

“They haven’t talked about what position I will play,” Free said. “Mostly, I just wanted to get my foot in the door.”

However, Free did not have a choice to join former NIU wide receiver Sam Hurd in Dallas, but Nordin and Horvath did have a say in their destinations.

Nordin said he was told by the Seattle Seahawks that they would draft him in the seventh round. But Seattle’s actions spoke louder than words, as they ended up losing out on Nordin’s services.

“Seven teams got a hold of me after I wasn’t selected in the draft,” Nordin said. “I asked my agent what he thought would be a good fit for me, and we went with what he thought was best.”

As for Horvath, Detroit became one of six teams that contacted him for his services.

The old age of current Lions quarterback Jon Kitna, and the fact Detroit drafted Michigan State’s Drew Stanton on Sunday, made him feel Motown would provide the best opportunity for him to break into the NFL.

“You don’t want to go where they have three or four established quarterbacks,” Horvath said. “I felt Detroit would give me the best chance to compete for a job.”

It was not Free getting drafted late or the free agent contracts that brought forth the most scrutiny among the Huskies’ draft picks. Rather, it was the too- short, undersized, should’ve-been -picked-in-a-later-round NIU running back that was being second guessed.

Regardless of some experts’ opinion, Chicago made it clear they were happy to take Wolfe as early as they did.

“It was his all-around game,” said Greg Gabriel, Bears director of college scouting. “He’s a change-of-pace back for us; we were looking for that. He was the guy we really aimed at going into today. We were just hoping he’d be there for us in this round because that’s what we had planned to do.”