Nov. 11, 2018 wasn’t that long ago, unless you’re an NFL receiver. Then it’s a lifetime.
That’s the last time Martavis Bryant appeared in an NFL game. Bryant has been in just about every league since then: the Canadian Football League, the Indoor Football League, the Fan-Controlled Football League and the XFL.
Bryant is back in the NFL, though with a ways to go before appearing in a regular season game. Bryant signed with the Washington Commanders on Tuesday.
Bryant was with the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2014-17 and was a promising star, then had his final taste of NFL regular season games with the Raiders in 2018. It would be a rare story if he makes it all the way back and earns a job on the Commanders’ roster.
Bryant, like Josh Gordon before him, had a promising career wrecked by multiple violations of the NFL’s substance abuse policy.
He was suspended for the entire 2016 season for violating the policy. In 2018, he was suspended indefinitely for violating the terms of his conditional reinstatement.
Bryant bounced around various leagues looking to get back in the NFL, and was signed by the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad last year, although he didn’t appear in a game.
If Bryant can make the roster and appear in a game, it would be a rare case. It’s unusual for a player to go six years between appearing in games. Stories like that of Doug Flutie, who went from 1990 to 1997 without appearing in an NFL game while he starred in the CFL, don’t happen often.
Bryant is 32 years old but apparently has retained many of the athletic skills at 6-foot-4, 210 pounds that he had scoring 14 touchdowns his first two NFL seasons before his season-long suspension. After all of his football stops the past few seasons and the long gap since his last NFL regular season game, it would be a heck of a story if Bryant completes his comeback.