Eventually, Champ Bailey wised up to the fact that doing less meant getting paid more. Eventually, he dropped the dream he’d carried with him from Georgia to Washington, a twentysomething corner realizing he needed to protect his body, an all-time great racking up roughly $108 million in career earnings over his years in Washington and Denver.
But when he first broke into the NFL as the seventh overall pick in 1999, a young Bailey wanted to play both ways. He played wideout at Georgia, good enough to lead the Bulldogs in receiving yards his senior year. The rationale was simple, as he reflected: When you’re good at something, you simply want to do it all the time.
On Friday, exchanging pleasantries with Broncos head coach Sean Payton and the maze of NFL polos that’d popped up in Boulder for CU’s pro day, a 46-year-old Bailey stood witness to a young man trying to fulfill the destiny he once sought for himself. Bailey sees himself in Travis Hunter. His joy for the game. His dislike for coming off the field. The fact that he is good at something, and simply wants to do it all the time.
Hunter has made it clear that he intends to continue playing both ways once drafted.
Bailey knows, though, that it won’t be that easy.
“If he has any part of the mindset that I have, I wanted to do everything when I was that age,” Bailey reflected to The Denver Post. “Because I felt like I could. And he’s the same way. So, I expect him to want it.
“The problem is: Who’s going to let him?”
Would the Tennessee Titans? Would the Cleveland Browns? Would the New York Giants, New England Patriots or any team with a top-five pick in April’s NFL draft be willing to commit that level of risk on that level of investment?
CU head coach Deion Sanders, in typically effusive fashion, said on NFL Network’s coverage Friday that playing both ways in the NFL would actually be easier than college ball because of a slower pace of play. And Hunter, Sanders proclaimed, was “built for this.”
The Heisman Trophy winner racked up 15 receiving touchdowns and four interceptions in 2024. And he played more than 1,300 snaps doing it.
“He is special, man,” Bailey said of Hunter. “His body of work is unique. It’ll never be done again — like that, again.”
But in incredibly rough arithmetic, playing both receiver and cornerback in the league would double any chance of injury. Any defensive-minded head coach, Bailey pointed out, will likely want Hunter to play defense; any offensive-minded coach would want the opposite.
Take Bailey, who was plucked out of Georgia by former Washington coach Norv Turner. Turner, a longtime offensive mind, knew Bailey could play both ways. In the cornerback’s second season, Turner handed him a decent chunk of snaps, and Bailey caught three balls for 78 yards.
Turner, however, was canned after that 2000 season and replaced by Marty Schottenheimer, a former NFL linebacker. Bailey, then a bright-eyed 22-year-old, still wanted to play offense. Schottenheimer, Bailey chuckled, wanted “no parts of it.”
He “might have played one snap on offense” in 2001, as Bailey recalled, and caught one pass the rest of his career.
“It all depends on who’s running the show,” Bailey said.
The decision will be out of Hunter’s hands, Bailey reflected. Still, he hopes Hunter will get his shot, as the Hall of Famer put it. The two met a couple of months ago for a sit-down conversation facilitated by media company Overtime.
And Bailey confirmed for himself, up close, what he’d seen from afar. The kid was young, he reflected. And hungry. Just as he was, once.
“Man, this dude is exceptional,” Bailey said. “I’m just looking forward to seeing how it starts.”
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