NFL Record holder Brian Mitchell sees Now as The Golden Age of NFL's return men
Brian Mitchell holds the NFL record for most combined kick- and punt-return touchdowns with 13. Says the retired player of the current age of NFL return men, "Wish I was playing right now."
Brian Mitchell toiled 14 years in the NFL, and it is safe to assume that everything he had was pretty much left on the field.
He was a tried-and-true warrior, which explains why he was always such a fan favorite. You know the type. Bursting at the seams with heart, emotion, toughness, courage.
Came into the NFL as a fifth-round pick from a small school, but to make it at 5-11, had to forget about playing his college position.
He was a quarterback at Southwestern Louisiana.
Left the league with his name in the record book.
"What I did in 14 years, I never expected to accomplish," says Mitchell, now a co-host The John Thompson Show, a D.C.-area afternoon sports talker that features the former Georgetown basketball coach. "I think I showed a lot of people."
No player in NFL history returned more punts in a career than Mitchell, who played 10 of his seasons with the Redskins, and ran back 463 punts.
That mark in itself vouches for his fearlessness.
And that record figures to last for a while.
Yet Mitchell also set the bar for career TDs on combined kickoff and punt returns.
He struck paydirt 13 times — not including a half-dozen or so TDs nullified by penalties.
That record is on borrowed time.
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By Jarrett Bell
USA TODAY
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