Former Panthers receiver becomes first NFL player to sign pro basketball contract

Posted by Admin May 9, 2024 Football

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Devin Funchess is breaking new ground for NFL players.

The former second-round pick who caught 21 touchdowns with Carolina recently became the first athlete to play in the NFL and then sign a professional basketball contract, the Panthers said.

Funchess spent the first four seasons of his pro football career with the Panthers, making it to the Super Bowl as a rookie during the 2015-16 season. He would play just one more year in the NFL, and attempted to switch to tight end but could not make the cut.

Now, nearly five years after taking his final NFL snap, Funchess has shifted his focus to basketball.

A member of the Caribbean Storm Llaneros in Villavicencio, Colombia, Funchess said the move to basketball stems from a promise made to his grandfather.

“I told my grandfather, I said, man, I’m going to go win the Super Bowl and then I’m going straight to basketball,” he said in an interview with the Panthers’ official website.

He came close to fulfilling the first promise, but now is making good on the second. A third promise he made is that once he does the first two, he will become a farmer.

“He’s my biggest, I tell him, you’re my biggest motivator,” Funchess said of his grandfather during the interview. “He got me to fall back in love with a sport that I thought was all the way retired from.”

Funchess made his professional basketball debut last year with the Statham Academy of the AsiaBasket league. Then, just this month, played his first game with his new Colombian team.

The former Panther told the team’s site that eventually, his dream is to come back to the Carolinas to play for the Greensboro Swarm, which is the Charlotte Hornets’ G-League affiliate.

“I really want to play with the Swarm just because it’s like so much, it was so much love,” he said during the interview. “When I look at my life and I go back to my life, yeah, Detroit gave me a lot of love, a ton of love. But Charlotte opened so many doors for me…my whole family is from North Carolina anyway. So, it’d just be dope just to get my fam to the games.”

Where his new career takes him remains to be seen, but the Swarm’s general manager, Cole Teal, said Funchess is at a good starting point with his new team in South America. So while his dream of winning the Super Bowl may be over, the pursuit of a new, rekindled dream is still ahead.