Pro Football Articles Opinion & Fantasy – Football Diner

Mike Furrey – Last of the Two-Way Players
by Sam Monson
August 26th 2010
 
Mike Furreys career might be over. He was recently placed on IR by the Washington Redskins, and at 33, and dealing with persistent concussions, we might not see him suit up in the NFL again.
 
Why should you care?
 
Well, Mike Furrey is more than just a career backup, a journeyman whose name you see buried on somebodys depth chart and never give a second thought to.
 
Furreys career is a great story. His entire football life has been a tale of the scrappy underdog succeeding despite nobody giving him a chance. After a high-school career that saw him letter in multiple sports he tried to make it at Ohio State. He played in several games as a freshman after making the team as a walk-on, but then transferred to Division I-AA Northern Iowa. There he set Gateway Football Conference receiving records with career totals of 242 receptions for 3,544 yards and 27 touchdowns.
 
His college career apparently wasnt enough for him to hear his name called on draft day, and he entered camp with the Indianapolis Colts as an undrafted rookie in 2000, trying to do the same thing he did at Ohio State; make the team as an unknown. He never made it to the regular season this time, getting waived at the end of camp.
 
From that point Furreys career took an unconventional path. He went to play in the short-lived XFL for the Las Vegas Outlaws, and after Tommy Maddox, might have the most notable and successful post-XFL playing career. But he didnt bounce straight back to the NFL after the XFLs lone-season of existence ended. Furrey first had to pay his dues in Arena Football, the same league Kurt Warner had ended up in during his Cinderella-story career.
 
Again, there arent many players that have made a successful transition from Arena football back to the NFL, but what makes his stop at Arena football more interesting is that it was still in the era of Arena football where most players were Iron Men – two-way players that didnt come off the field or play just offense or defense. Furrey not only put up league-leading numbers as a wide out, but he was playing defensive back at the same time. When the St Louis Rams came calling in April 2003, offering him a path back to the NFL, Furrey was leading the Arena League in receptions, receiving yards, touchdowns and points.
 
He was able to stick on the Rams roster through the 2003 season as a receiver, thanks largely to his abilities as a special teams player, but in 2005 when the Rams were struggling for depth in the secondary, they converted Furrey to free safety based on his time as a defensive back in the Arena League. He became a starter for the Rams, and even recorded a game-clinching interception deep in the fourth quarter of one game, and a game-winning 67-yard interception return for a touchdown in another.
 

If this is all sounding a little abstract, lets put it into some perspective. Football used to be a game of iron-men, and at many levels it still is, but not in the NFL, not for years, decades even. Back in the games past all players played both ways. Sammie Baugh is not only one of the greatest quarterbacks to play, but was also the teams punter and a star defensive back. Bronko Nagurski wasnt just a punishing, feared runner for the Chicago Bears, but a standout defensive lineman as well. Chuck Bednarick, otherwise known as Concrete Charlie, is known as the last of the 60-minute men, meaning players that played both ways for most of the game, and he retired after the 1962 season. Bednarick was a star player at linebacker and center for the Eagles, and represents the end of the era of Iron Man players in the NFL, as the league pushed further into specialization.
 
Some forty years later Mike Furrey was alternating between defensive back and wide receiver. Now Im not comparing Furrey with Hall of Fame players in terms of ability, though he perhaps never got the credit he deserves as a solid and reliable player in the NFL. In 2006 he registered 98 receptions (for the Lions!), 1,086 yards and 6 touchdowns. He came within 5 receptions of leading the league in receptions on a 3-win team, the season after starting at free safety for the Rams. Hes no hall of fame, all-time great, but neither is he your standard NFL journeyman backup whose main goal is not to make a mistake that would lead to being cut whenever he sees the field.
 
After the Lions released Furrey following the 2008 season, he went on to play with the Cleveland Browns where his two-way play resurfaced. Furrey was signed as a receiver, often appearing in the slot for the Browns early in the season, but as the year wore on he also featured back in his free safety position in their defensive sub-packages.
 
He signed for the Redskins in the off-season and figured to be a contributer on a team bereft of receiving talent before suffering his latest concussion setback. Now it looks like his career might be done, and all most fans know about him is that hes the guy some announcers refer to as Mike Fury!, like hes some kind of video-game beat-em-up character.
 
In High School football today lots of players play both ways. The best athlete on the team tends not only to play quarterback, but plays on D as well. At the amateur level everyone is a two-way player. Hell, your humble Diner reporter played both ways in the Irish American Football League this past season. But even at the NCAA level two-way players have become rare, let alone the NFL. Mike Furrey represents a brand of football familiar to grass roots, a brand of ball forgotten by the glitz and the glamour of the multi-billion dollar industry the NFL has become. Once you get past the TV cameras, the contracts, the millionaires, the endless supply of equipment and branded material that surrounds an NFL football game today, there are still just 22 guys on a field playing football.
 
Mike Furrey is a guy who has spent his entire career just playing football, wherever he had to do it. When his team needed a receiver, he stepped up, caught some footballs. When his team needed a safety, he covered the middle of the field. Chuck Bednarik might be the last of the 60-minute men, but Mike Furrey could well be the last real two-way player in the NFL, and if he is forced into retirement from concussions inflicted on him by the game he loves, the most were likely to hear about it is a one-line note on a news ticker somewhere. Mike Furrey deserves more than that, and the Diner would like to tip its cap to the last of the two-way players.