So, You Made The NFL... Tyler Bray's Record 113 Transaction Journey As An NFL Quarterback
Jonathan Daniel. Getty Images.Nobody in NFL history has more recorded transaction entries than quarterback Tyler Bray's 113. Now I just blogged a week ago chronicling T.Y. McGill's 114 transactions listed on his pro-football reference page, but readers will recall the final entry was for a completely different player. So these two ultimate "never give up the dream" guys share the record at 113 transactions.
What exactly is a "transaction"? Anytime a player is signed, waived, activated, de-actived, suspended, things like that, it gets logged in the official NFL log books for official NFL log book reasons. And pro-football reference tracks every one of these on every player's profile page, which I just so happened to have scraped into a database that allows me to pull those players with the most. It also allows me to show you in graph form just how ridiculous 113 transactions is.
Here's a sideways histogram showing the number of players (x-axis) for every number of transactions (y-axis) starting at ten so you can actually see the slivers at the bottom:
Let's introduce our guy today, Tyler Bray. He played three years at Tennessee and had the third most touchdown passes thrown in the SEC in 2011 and second most in 2012. Still, he would go undrafted and sign with the Chiefs as a free agent where he would spend five seasons. Here are his stats from his time in KC:
Pass Completions: 0
Rushes: 1
Rush Yards: 0
Rush Fumbles: 1
Rush Fumbles Lost: 1
Rush Fumbles Lost And Returned For Defensive TD: 1
Transactions:
Nice.
Now some of this had to do with an ACL injury in 2015, but this has to be considered some sort of abuse to just whimsically activate and de-activate a guy over and over again. Thinking outside the box on why the Chiefs GM did this and all I can come up with is there was some set number of moves he was expected to make every week to prove to his bosses he was still active at work. You know, like when you loop your wired mouse to an oscillating fan so the cursor moves back and forth in the crescent formation while you take a nap working from home. Gotta keep the trackers thinking your screen is active.
But hey. The Chiefs had Mahomes anyway, so it was time for a clean start somewhere else for Bray. Somewhere he could have a chance to show the world he was more than a washed undrafted quarterback. Somewhere desperate enough to give him a real look.
Welcome to Chicago!
2018 was a new beginning for this newly signed Chicago Bears quarterback just like it was for so many others before him. And despite all the shit Bray had dealt with in Kansas City he pushed through and didn't give up on his dream. This fact is important to remember and quite frankly is the real take-away of this blog series on guys with astronomical career transactions. We naturally focus our attention on the stars in major sports. We look at their success first and only then trace back all the work they put in to win the Super Bowl or whatever else.
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Well guess what? People like Tyler Bray, or T.Y. McGill have battled through hells that Tom Brady could never imagine even in his worst jiu jitsu nightmare. And despite dealing with 69 transactions while active or de-active in KC, he went out and balled during his preseason opportunities in Chicago. He even had Bears fans calling for him to get a chance which is something that's only happened to every backup quarterback in the history of the Chicago Bears.
But it wasn't just the fans. Even players started vouching for him to be the guy.
WARNING!
Perhaps the saddest hype video of all time ahead
That's a tough watch as a Bears fan. And just a brutal song choice. But it does remind me how much of a preseason star Tanner Gentry was. No Dane Sanzenbacher, but solid vs opposing team's future security guards at Buffalo Wild Wings. Anyway, let's just fire up the oldschool blue computer screen once again and rip through the rest of Tyler Bray's 113 career transactions:
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I don't know about you but I see a lot of "look boss I've totally done things today" transactions up there.
2018 Summed up:
Signed with the Bears in the offseason only to be a final cut casualty and placed on the practice squad a day later, a place he would call home for a couple months before getting cut and signed back on the same day most certainly so that Ryan Pace could show the McCaskeys he was doing things. De-activated and activated three times over for the holidays before getting waived on Dec 29th and released on the 31st which - I guess - is apparently a demotion from getting waived??? They probabaly realized that was harsh so they signed him back to the practice squad to hang with the boys for a couple weeks before his contract expired.
2019 Summed up
The Bears gave it another chance in March to start the new season before releasing him on August 31st. Then something weird happens. Let's zoom in on transactions 86 through 89:
As you can see the log shows Bray was released in #87 after having already been released. But since #87 and #88 were on the same date, perhaps he was signed first on October 5th before being released on the same day (this league). But that doesn't fix things because now he would have been double released anyway on the 5th and 9th as there were no other transactions on the 9th. WTF? Oh shit, I already forgot. Bears GM Ryan Pace had to do something to show the McCaskey's he was doing important GM work. Even if it's cutting a guy that was already cut.
2020 Summed Up
18 practice squad assignments in one season trails only Wendell Smallwood's 20 in 2020 in NFL recorded transaction log history. The 49ers saw how much experience Bray had at being assigned to practice squads so they jumped in and assigned him themselves which capped off Bray's career. To this day, we are led to believe he is still there. On the 49ers practice squad. At least according to the official NFL transaction log book.
Let's bring this home. What would you go through to make it as an NFL quarterback, if only to complete one pass for 18 yards across a seven-year career? And for that one completion to be nowhere found on the internet (according to my quick search) yet this sad side of history remains:
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Is Bray's $4.9 Million career earnings before taxes enough to make that worth it? I'm going to say yes. But barely. Say what you want about him but he has one more completion than you in the National Football League. And he's still only 32. Who's to say he doesn't give this thing one more chance? One more transaction is all he needs to be the sole leader in NFL transactions history.
Anyway, cheers to Tyler Bray. A quarterback who was never quite talented enough to earn a solid home in the NFL, but talented enough to keep the dream alive for seven years. More than we can ever say.