<table> </table> T&#8194;he round-faced 15-year-old planted his feet on gravel 360 miles south of where he&#8217;d left, and already he wanted to go back.</p><p>He missed the depressed city that had held back more than a few of his relatives, some with as much of a future as he had.</p><p>Branden Albert walked into his brother&#8217;s house and set down his bags. Then he walked into the den and picked up a phone book.</p><p>&#8220;What are you doing?&#8221; Ashley Sims asked his younger brother.</p><p>Thanksgiving was coming. Branden wanted to call an airline and find out the cost of a plane ticket to Rochester, N.Y. His mother lived there. That&#8217;s where Branden had played basketball, skipped school and failed ninth grade twice. It was where his life was pointed toward a frightening direction.</p><p>Sims had picked up Branden on a Friday in the fall of 2000 and drove him to Edgewood, Md., where he&#8217;d live with Sims, learn some discipline and be introduced to the game that had changed Sims&#8217; life.</p><p>&#8220;Just seeing about going home,&#8221; Branden said.</p><p>Sims walked over to Branden and slammed the phone book on his younger brother&#8217;s fingers. Through angry eyes, Sims looked hard at Branden.</p><p>&#8220;Brother,&#8221; Sims said, &#8220;there ain&#8217;t no more home. This <em>is </em>home.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226; &#8226; &#8226;</p><p>Branden Albert wants more. It is a Tuesday during football season, and Albert is sitting in a crowded Kansas City lunch spot, spending the Chiefs&#8217; day off negotiating with a waitress over the size of his prime rib.</p><p>The 316-pound offensive tackle leans back and stares at her. Can&#8217;t she tell this is a hungry man? Can&#8217;t she tell that 14 ounces won&#8217;t do?</p><p>&#8220;I can go up to 20,&#8221; she says, her best offer.</p><p>Albert waits a moment, studying her face to see if she can do better.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll take it,&#8221; he says, smiling and proud as if he just closed a real-estate deal. He&#8217;ll take as much as they&#8217;ll offer. He can afford it now.</p><p>Until the food arrives, now&#8217;s as good a time as any to hear the story of how Branden Albert went from troubled kid to first-round draft pick. About how his brother turned a portly, lazy teenager with a rocky past and a hatred of football into a man with a limitless future and an NFL contract worth millions.</p><p>It took time, and it took work. Now, Albert is taking advantage of the rewards. He says you&#8217;d be surprised if you knew all he went through to get here: the failed classes, the early mornings and the long days &#8212; all the pain he never chose, but instead chose him.</p><p>Albert says he wouldn&#8217;t be sitting here if not for his brother. Heck, he&#8217;d probably be dodging trouble back in Rochester like some of his other family members.</p><p>But instead he&#8217;s here, waiting on a slice of meat that weighs nearly a pound and a half, waiting to open his mouth and fold in slabs the size of a baby&#8217;s fist.</p><p>Until then, there&#8217;s some time. And this is where he starts:</p><p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t fault people for where they come from,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Or where they live. It&#8217;s not their fault. Sometimes you&#8217;ve just got to make the situation better.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226; &#8226; &#8226;</p><p>Branden was a football player. His brother saw it. Ashley watched the plump 3-year-old spiral a football from one side of their house to the other. Ashley was in high school then, 12 years older than Susan Albert&#8217;s baby, and already there were signs that Branden would be perfect for the game.</p><p>Years later, football pulled Ashley out of Rochester on a scholarship to the University of Maryland. While he was there, he watched his brother deteriorate, following the lead of cousins that came before them. One of them had a football scholarship in Pennsylvania but dropped out after a week. Another never made it to the University of Cincinnati. Yet another cousin was said to have more talent than Branden, but he never made it out of Rochester.