By Brian Kopycinski
The NFL Draft cycles of the 2010s were marked by a number of high profile busts on the offensive side of the ball. The most notorious of these include Justin Blackmon, Johnny Manziel and Trent Richardson. Another name fans of the Madden series will remember fondly is Dri Archer, a blazing fast triple threat prospect that flamed out in two calendar years. Archer, a consensus All-American at Kent State University, was a dynamic runner, pass catcher and return man for the Golden Flashes. The Pittsburgh Steelers, coming off a disappointing 8-8 season in 2013, selected Archer in the 3rd round, 97th overall, in the 2014 draft. What looked to be a promising NFL career ended rather abruptly soon after it got started.
Adrion “Dri” Archer was born in Tampa and grew up in Venice, Florida, just south of Sarasota. At Venice High, he starred as a three-sport athlete in football, basketball and track and field. His legendary speed gained attention his senior year in 2009 at the Florida state track meet, where he finished second in the 100-meter dash behind Dentarius Locke, later an elite collegiate sprinter at Florida State. Archer beat out future Michigan QB Denard Robinson by a hundredth of a second in the finals for silver. With offers from elite track programs that included Arkansas and Clemson, Archer ultimately chose Kent State, the only school to extend him a football scholarship.
While Kent State is one of the least successful teams in FBS history, it is notable for producing several exceptional talents, such as Jack Lambert, Antonio Gates, James Harrison and Julian Edelman. Archer is up there among the Golden Flashes greats. After two unremarkable seasons marred by injuries, Archer was deemed academically ineligible for the 2011 campaign. Not much is known about this case, and questions remain over the truth of the matter. 2012 would be a year to remember, for both Archer and Kent State.
The year off lit a fire under Archer, who rushed for 1,429 yards with 16 scores, and hauled in 39 passes for 561 yards with 4 receiving TDs. As the Flashes standout returner, he posted a 36.9 average, totaling 591 yards on just 16 returns, and led the MAC with 3 kickoffs returned for a touchdown. Future Steelers fullback Roosevelt Nix was one of his teammates, who then was a defensive lineman. The Golden Flashes went 11-3 on the year, including an 8-0 record in conference play, though they fell to Jordan Lynch and the Northern Illinois Huskies 37-44 in double overtime in the MAC Championship. In their first bowl game in forty years, Kent State faced Arkansas State in the GoDaddy.com Bowl, losing 13-17.
The highlight of their season came in Week 8 when they defeated #18 Rutgers. For Archer, he achieved a career high of 350 all-purpose yards versus Ball State, which included a 99-yard kickoff return for six. He would also throw a touchdown pass to quarterback Spencer Keith in the second quarter of their 31-17 win over Army. It wouldn’t be until the end of the decade that the Flashes found similar success. The 2019 Flashes, driven by head coach Sean Lewis and quarterback Dustin Crum, defeated a Utah State team with Jordan Love under center in the Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl.
Losses in both the conference championship and bowl game likely led Archer to think that he still had unfinished business at Kent State. Looking back, this might not have been the best decision for his career. After such a remarkable season, being named the MAC Special Teams Player of the Year, an All-American as mentioned previously, and finalist for the Paul Hornung Award, he really had nothing left to prove. His breakout year compared favorably to Eugene Jarvis’ 2007 season at Kent, in which he rushed for over 1,600 yards. In the 2013 season opener versus Liberty University, Archer left the game with an ankle injury after the first offensive possession.
This thankfully wouldn’t prove to be a season-ending injury, but it certainly hampered Archer throughout the remainder of his senior year. For the 2013 season, Kent State finished near the bottom of the MAC East at 4-8. Archer put up 854 total yards from scrimmage with ten touchdowns, which wasn’t bad, but not nearly as good as his last year. His usage in the return game suffered as well, though he did return a kickoff for 100 yards to tie a school record. This came in the first quarter of Kent State’s homecoming game at Dix Stadium against NIU, which ended in another loss to the Huskies, this time 38-24.
It’s worth mentioning that Archer returned just six punts for his collegiate career. Had he developed this aspect of his game further, his odds of sticking in the NFL might have improved. Archer soon made a name for himself after a bittersweet end to his tenure at Kent State. At the NFL Scouting Combine in February, he ran a 4.26 second 40-yard dash, which currently ties him with three others for the fifth fastest time ever recorded. Back then, Archer would have been tied for second place with Jerome Mathis, behind Chris Johnson and Rondel Menendez at 4.24 seconds. As a result, Archer’s draft stock soared. John Ross, another all-time bust of the 2010s, bested them all with a time of 4.22 in 2017, that the Chiefs’ Xavier Worthy later beat by a hundredth of a second in 2024. The promise of a player with that much speed was tempting to many scouts and GMs, and Pittsburgh took a chance on Archer, an undersized gadget player, listed at just 5’8” tall, weighing 175 pounds.
Archer’s size was no doubt his greatest concern, whether he could handle the punishment the NFL had to offer. His scouting report reflected this, one that accurately predicted how his career ended up. Drafted as a running back, the Steelers already had their answer at the position, following the emergence of Le’Veon Bell. Pittsburgh had also signed LeGarrette Blount, who was coming off a fine year with the New England Patriots. Special teams wasn’t exactly lacking, either, with Felix Jones and Emmanuel Sanders handling kickoff return duties, though not to an elite level like Devin Hester, or another Kent State alum in Joshua Cribbs. Perhaps this connection that Pittsburgh witnessed often against their division rival swayed them with Archer.
Needless to say, things didn’t work out for Archer and the Steelers. For his rookie year, he had a minimal impact, with just ten rushes for 40 yards, and seven catches for 23. On special teams, he returned nine kickoffs for a total of 161 yards. Markus Wheaton, who some saw as Mike Wallace’s replacement, led the team with 494. Antonio Brown remained the team’s primary punt returner in 2014, good for 319 yards and a touchdown. Archer had just one for a gain of 2 yards. The team improved in their eighth year under head coach Mike Tomlin, claiming the AFC North crown at 11-5, headlined by the Killer B’s of Bell, Brown, and Ben Roethlisberger. Their return to the postseason wouldn’t last, as they lost handily to the Baltimore Ravens 17-30 in the Wild Card game.
Archer’s career came to an end in 2015. While he became more involved on special teams, returning 14 kicks for a total of 354 yards, he didn’t get a single touch on offense in eight games. The Steelers were unimpressed by his performance and cut him in November. Soon after, they claimed former All-Pro return man Jacoby Jones off waivers from the San Diego Chargers. Now in his age-31 season, Jones’ best years were obviously behind him. It’s a bit head-scratching that the Steelers would be so quick to give up on a former third-round pick, when adding a player like Jacoby Jones, past his prime, was the solution. While Jones was coming off a good year with Baltimore, he had clearly lost a step in the time since. You could see the Steelers’ decision as a “win-now” move, with the hope that Jones would return to his former glory. As we all know now, this didn’t work out, either, and the Steelers went on to lose in the playoffs once again, this time to the Denver Broncos in the Divisional Round.
For Archer, that would be the last action he’d see in the NFL. In February 2016, he signed a reserve/future contract with the New York Jets, who then cut him in May. After the Buffalo Bills claimed Archer, he failed to report, and that was that. For a player that was known to get homesick, especially in college, it’s likely the prospect of constantly moving through the waiver wire did not appeal to him. While Dri Archer never lived up to the unrealistic hype bestowed upon him, a contemporary of his did find some success in the pros. De’Anthony Thomas, a star at Oregon, carved out a respectable career over six seasons as a fourth-round draft pick of Kansas City in 2014. Thomas contributed as a receiver, as well as a punt returner, unlike Archer. The two were quite alike in many ways.
It’s unlikely Archer could have reached the highs Darren Sproles or Cordarrelle Patterson achieved in the league. A realistic ceiling for him as a kick returner could have been a player like Dexter McCluster. Archer wasn’t the first player of his type to fail and certainly won’t be the last. Others like him that come to mind are Tavon Austin, and yes, even John Ross. Had Chris Rainey, who racked up over 1,000 return yards in 2012, not done what he did that led to his release, and maintained that level of production in ‘13, it’s possible the Steelers would have simply passed on Archer, figuring they already their kickoff return specialist of the future.
Since his playing days, Archer has remained relatively quiet, and there isn’t much information out there about his life after football. Some will remember him for his standout performance at the combine, others for his Bo Jackson Tecmo Bowl speed in Madden. Archer never made it in the NFL, but that shouldn’t take away from his fantastic collegiate accolades and career. He has much to be proud of. In 2021, Archer was inducted into Kent State’s Athletics Hall of Fame, along with his former teammates Rosie Nix and Brian Winters. Winters, an All-MAC First Team offensive lineman in 2012, was a third-round pick of the Jets in ‘13 and enjoyed nine years in the league with three teams. That Flashes team in 2012, led by Dri Archer, was one of the greatest in program history, bringing joy to a fanbase that so desperately needed it. His legacy at Kent is truly something special.