The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Return to football pays off for Fells
TE previously played hoops in several countries
Darren Fells has already reinvented himself once as a professional athlete, and now he’s trying to do it again with a different twist.
The 32-year-old tight end, in his first season with the Browns, was an all-state high school tight end in Fullerton, Calif. He was also a good basketball player and went to UC-Irvine on a basketball scholarship.
Fells was not selected in the 2008 NBA draft, but he played four seasons of professional basketball in Argentina, Mexico, France, Belgium and Finland. The framed jerseys from each team in Fells’ rec-room might make good conversation material. But he wasn’t enjoying himself. He wanted to get physical with opponents, so he contacted his brother, Daniel, a former tight end with the Patriots, Giants, Broncos and St. Louis Rams.
“I just wasn’t feeling the non-contactness of the sport (European basketball),” Fells said before practice Aug. 2 in Berea. “I started talking to my brother. He played for New England at the time. I visited him.
“We had a long talk about whether I wanted to continue to do basketball or give football a shot. I still wanted to try football. I actually had a tryout straight out of college with Minnesota, so I knew there was that possibility. He got me in contact with agents and a training facility and I started training.”
Fells spent most of 2013 with the Seattle Seahawks, but was waived on Aug. 31. He persevered. The Arizona Cardinals signed him to their practice squad on Oct. 9, 2013 and elevated him to the active roster on Jan. 1, 2014.
Finally, on Sept. 21, 2014, 10 years after he last played a football game that counted while in high school, Fells suited up for the Arizona Cardinals in a game against the San Francisco 49ers. He was targeted once and did not catch a pass.
Fells didn’t play again that season until Nov. 30, but his professional football career was underway. He played three seasons with the Cardinals and one with the Lions before signing a three-year, $12 million contract with the Browns as a free agent on March 15.
“If you’ve ever seen a picture of him in his basketball uniform, he looked like an enforcer,” Browns tight ends coach Greg Seamon said. “He would have been able to play with the Bad Boy Pistons back in the day, so I think it’s just part of his personality.
“He’s a tough individual. He understands that every athlete has strengths and
his strength, literally, is his size and strength and his length and his mind because he’s really smart. He studied hard and learned to play the game. Even entering into it in a late stage, he’s very accomplished that way, so it is a little different for an ex-basketball player to be known as a blocker, but he’s built that career for himself and he’s good at it.”
Now Fells is hoping to grow his reputation and become more than a blocker, although he says he is a blocker first and foremost, and if that’s what offensive coordinator Todd Haley wants him to do, he’s fine with that. But he is 6-foot-7, 270 pounds, with hands the size of large skillets. He jumps for balls thrown in his direction like he’s climbing the ladder for a rebound.
“I feel my main strength is as a blocking tight end in the running game,” Fells said. “In the pass game I can help if you need extra protection, but I also feel I can run routes and make
plays in that sense.
“I’ve always been a team-first type of guy. If they need me to runblock for 40, 50 plays, I’ll do that. If they need me to run a fade, I’ll do that as well. No one on defense is successful with my almost seven-foot length arms. I feel if the quarterback throws it anywhere near my body, I’m coming down with it.”
Fells has 57 career catches. He caught 17 passes and scored three touchdowns in 16 games with the Lions last year.
“He can catch the ball,” head coach Hue Jackson said after practice Aug. 2. “He has the ability to do a lot of different things for us, and that’s why he’s here. He can block. He can catch. He knows the routes we run. He’s a veteran player. He’s really good for that room.”
David Njoku is the starting tight end. Seth DeValve jumped from 10 catches as a rookie in 2016 to 33 last season and hopes to add to that total.