Benjamin Jermaine Talley (born July 14, 1972) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, pl ...

who played two seasons in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

(NFL) with the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

and Atlanta Falcons. He was drafted by the Giants in the fourth round of the

1995 NFL Draft The 1995 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 22–23, 1995 at the Paramount T ...

. He played college football at the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

and attended

Griffin High School Griffin High School is located in Griffin, Georgia, United States. It is part of the Griffin-Spalding County School District. The mascot of Griffin High School is the Bear. The school's colors are green and gold. The Sam Bailey Building is par ...

Griffin, Georgia Griffin is a city in and the county seat of Spalding County, Georgia. It is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 23,478. Griffin was founded in 1840 and named for landowner Col. Lewis Law ...

College football

Talley played for the

Tennessee Volunteers The Tennessee Volunteers and Lady Volunteers are the 20 male and female varsity intercollegiate athletics programs that represent the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Volunteers compete in Division I of the National Collegi ...

from 1991 to 1994. He started all twelve games for the Volunteers his senior year in 1994, the third year he did so. He also earned All-

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

second-team honors after recording 72 tackles and 5.5 sacks in 1994.

Professional career

Talley was selected by the

with the 133rd overall pick in the

. He was a member of the Giants from 1995 to 1996, appearing in four games for the team during the 1995 season. He played in eight games with the Atlanta Falcons in 1998.

References

External links

Just Sports Stats
{{DEFAULTSORT:Talley, Ben Living people 1972 births Players of American football from Georgia (U.S. state) American football linebackers African-American players of American football Tennessee Volunteers football players New York Giants players Atlanta Falcons players People from Griffin, Georgia 21st-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American sportspeople