Strength, determination lift Saints WR Michael Thomas

When he returned to Taft High after winter break of his junior year, Michael Thomas carried the gift — if you want to call it that — his father, Michael Sr., had given him.

They were called Gripmasters, two four-inch strips of colored plastic held together with four spring-loaded coils.

He would compress them as he walked the school’s halls. He would wring them in the weight room.

If he jotted notes in class with one hand, he squeezed a Gripmaster with the other. He probably clasped them in his fists 1,000 times each day.

When he told teammates he would play in the NFL like his uncle, Keyshawn Johnson, they laughed at him.

“There’s kids that would cripple under it,” said Matt Kerstetter, Thomas’ coach at Taft. “They’d be crushed by it. Kids making fun of you — that would wear some people out. It seems like Mikey is just wired differently: ‘I’m going to prove all you wrong.’ ”

The laughing at Michael Thomas stopped long ago, but he plays like he still hears it.

Thomas has turned doubts into fuel for his immense capacity for work, and the work has turned him into perhaps the best receiver in the NFL. On Sunday, Thomas will be one of the best players in the Superdome when he and the New Orleans Saints face the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC championship game.

In the first meeting between the Saints and Rams, Thomas caught 12 passes for 211 yards, burning cornerback Marcus Peters to the point it sparked a verbal feud between Peters and coach Sean Payton, who gloated about how much he liked the matchup.

In the Saints’ 20-14 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles last week, Thomas caught 12 passes for 171 yards, scoring one touchdown and serving, crucially, as a decoy on another.

Thomas led the league in receptions this year, but even that honorific sells the accomplishment short. He caught 125 of the 147 passes thrown to him, and the resulting 85-percent catch rate is the highest by a wide receiver in a season since the NFL started tracking targets in 1992.

“A lot of people underestimate Mike,” Saints running back Alvin Kamara said. “You might look at him, and you might not see a Julio Jones or an Odell (Beckham) or some of those guys. He kind of has an unorthodox style about him. If you really watch him, and if you really know football, the stuff he does is amazing. The way he gets open, the way he catches the ball, the way he separates, the way he runs his routes, he has a knack. I think he’s the best receiver right now.”

Saints cornerback Eli Apple, who played with and practiced against Thomas at Ohio State, called Thomas “quarterback-friendly.” It means Thomas aggressively extends to catch passes, comes back to the ball when finishing his routes and, because of those hands, creates a giant radius to which Drew Brees can throw passes.

“He’s not someone who needs his body to catch the football,” Payton said. “He can catch it correctly, thumbs together, extended.”

Veteran Saints wide receiver Ted Ginn said, “He has every tool that you could have as a wideout. He could be crafty with you. He could big-boy, strong-arm you, finesse you. He’s got it all in his game. It just depends what route it is. As far as that, the guy’s a man-child.”

Payton used to have a Thursday ritual.

During those practices, he would line up across from wide receivers and simulate the kind of bump-and-run coverage they would receive on third downs.

Then along came Thomas. He performed the drill as usual, and Thomas’ burst off the line left Payton with one finger bent sideways and a bruised chest.

“I felt like I was in an automobile accident,” Payton said. “That was the last time.”