BALTIMORE (Map, News) - It was a day of waiting for two former Terrapin stars hoping to hear their names called at the National Football League Draft.

Defensive tackle Dre Moore and linebacker Erin Henderson were each expected to be drafted by the end of the third round at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday.

Moore’s wait was only slightly longer than expected, but Henderson did not hear his name called during the two-day, seven-round, 252-pick event.

Henderson, who was a finalist for the Butkus Award given to the best college linebacker in the country, left Maryland after his junior year. He announced after the Emerald Bowl he would forgo his senior season to enter the NFL Draft. Henderson’s brother, E.J., is a linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings.

“Of course I’m disappointed,” Erin Henderson said. “But everything is going to be all right.”

Henderson was a quarterback and linebacker at Aberdeen High School, but was used exclusively at linebacker at Maryland. After redshirting in 2004, Henderson suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in 2005 and missed the season. Henderson finally got onto the field as a redshirt sophomore in 2006 and was a second-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection.

This past fall, Henderson was even better, as he averaged 11.8 tackles per game — ninth-best nationally — en route to being named first-team All-ACC.

 But Henderson wasn’t the only local player whose great season wasn’t good enough to get him drafted. Morgan State senior running back Chad Simpson, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference’s Offensive Player of the Year who rushed for 1,496 yards this fall, will have to try to get invited to a training camp as an undrafted free agent, as will Towson All-American linebacker Brian Bradford.

Moore was predicted to be taken in the second or third round, but had to wait until the 16th pick of the fourth round to hear his name called by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the 115th pick overall.

Two players who played high school football in Maryland were taken in the first round. Derrick Harvey, a 6-foot-5, 252 pound defensive end from Florida who played for Eleanor Roosevelt High in Greenbelt, was taken eighth overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

Branden Albert, a guard from Virginia who played his high school football at Glen Burnie, was taken 15th overall by the Kansas City Chiefs, who traded draft picks to move up two spots to take the 6-foot-5, 309-pound offensive tackle.

“It said a lot to me by everything the Kansas City Chiefs did to get me,” Albert said. “Right now, all I’m concentrating on is trying to help this team win.”

avitelli@baltimoreexaminer.com