Meet the Atlanta Falcon who was cut by the Pats days after his house burned down

Joe Vellano thought he’d lost everything when his house burned down in September.

Then he lost his job, too.

Vellano, an Atlanta Falcons defensive lineman, was in training camp with the Patriots at the time of the blaze, which destroyed his Attleboro, Mass., apartment while New England prepared to play its final preseason game, against the Giants at MetLife Stadium.

No one was hurt, but Vellano wasn’t able to salvage his keepsakes from Super Bowl XLIX, which he won with the Patriots after the 2014 season.

“That was the biggest thing I lost — signed balls and memorabilia from that year, stuff that’s hard to replace,” said Vellano, who originally signed with New England in 2013 as an undrafted free agent out of Maryland and appeared in five regular season games and one playoff game in 2014. “But I still have the memories and I’ve got the ring, which is the biggest, most important thing.”

By all accounts, Vellano expected to be a part of the Patriots’ latest title run, as well. He’d been released by New England in September 2015 but rejoined the team in January of last year after a brief stint with the Indianapolis Colts, and he hoped his versatility — he can line up virtually anywhere on the line — would earn him a spot on the roster.

Instead, two days after the fire, word came from coach Bill Belichick that Vellano had been released, a casualty of the final round of roster cuts. Given the circumstances in his personal life, the timing couldn’t have been worse, but, speaking at Super Bowl media day Monday, Vellano said he didn’t take the move personally.

“It’s part of the business,” Vellano said. “Nobody got into coaching to cut people, but that’s the nature of it sometimes. You’ve just got to go out there and hopefully, wherever you end up, put your best foot forward, go out there every day, get better and learn their new system.”

Fortunately for Vellano, he didn’t stay out of work long. Three days after his release by the Patriots, the Falcons signed him to their practice squad. And with little more than the clothes on his back, Vellano headed to Atlanta to try to keep his NFL dream alive.

“I literally went down there with a bag and just tried to make the best out of it,” Vellano said. “And the biggest thing for me was not letting it affect me or take away from my job of going out there and playing. The best thing to help your situation is doing everything you can and blocking that out and having a great practice. Because that helps you out tomorrow, and then hopefully you can find a new home. You just control what you can control.”

Vellano went on to spend the entire 2016 regular season on the practice squad, but when Atlanta put defensive end Adrian Clayborn on IR earlier this month, a spot on the active roster opened up, and Falcons head coach Dan Quinn knew exactly how to fill it.

“Joe’s been ready to go for us for a while,” Quinn said Monday. “We were fortunate at defensive line that we didn’t have a lot of injuries. At other positions we did. So Joe had been waiting his time, he put a lot of work in to get ready, and when Adrian Clayborn went down with an injury, there was an opportunity for Joe, and we weren’t going to look anywhere else.

“He had been the guy who’d been there working and had his opportunity aligned exactly right, and we knew he was ready.”

Vellano then recorded a tackle in the Falcons’ NFC Championship Game win over the Green Bay Packers, setting up a meeting with his old team with the Lombardi Trophy at stake. But whereas some in Vellano’s position might feel angry or even resentful about the way his New England tenure ended, Vellano says there’s no bitterness as he prepares to face the Patriots in Houston.

“They gave me an unbelievable opportunity coming out of college to learn football and be a part of that team,” Vellano said. “Those were years up there that I’ll cherish forever. I had a great time, made a lot of friends, and learned a lot of football.

“I talk to them just like any other friends,” Vellano added of his ex-teammates. “They’re great guys up there that I’ve had through the years and they’re friends for life, not just this week.”

Instead, he’s focusing his attention toward being on the field for the game — he was inactive for his first Super Bowl, in Glendale — hopefully securing another championship ring, and then figuring out what’s next.

“I worked a long time, 22 years playing the same position, and it’s something that you always think about as a little kid,” Vellano said. “You watch the Super Bowl every year, and I’m just happy to be a part of it and to be a part of this group. We’ve really got a great group of guys on our team, and I want to go out there and do the best I can.

“The biggest thing is just trying to focus on what we’re doing in our room and really getting better and prepared,” he continued. “You come down here for the win, and you want to cap it off, finish it off the right way. You want to enjoy the experience and everything, but you don’t want to take away from your team and why we’re really here.”

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