He was little known, a quarterback in college not good enough to make it in the NFL as a thrower, but he ran kickoffs back pretty good. The game before he made history, Spurlock returned a kick 45 yards against the Houston Texans. He did more than that, he returned 4 for 112 yards total, in short he gave enough hope that an article was written about him in the St Pete Times wondering if he could be the one to add prominence to Tampa Bays lifelong beleaguered Kick Return history. When he did it, Michael Spurlock added 2 full pages to the Times day after edition. Charts outlining how the return happened, audio clips of Gene Deckerhoff’s now famous call for him to run harder. Run faster. To just run. And the next year, Michael Spurlock was cut. Useless. Like yesterday’s news. The man who finally ended the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Kick off return nightmare was not good enough to hold a roster spot. The reason? Could not multi-task; could not play another position. He wasn’t good enough to make the Bucs Wide Receiving corps. Then came the drafting of Dexter Jackson, and the benching of same Jackson for Clifton Smith, the Bucs, repeat after me, Tampa Bay’s PRO BOWL KICK RETURNER. But with Smith injured with concussions, Spurlock got the call from new GM Mark Dominik to come back and help the team out. Help them he did with a Punt Return touchdown. In between now and then, Spurlock decided to spend time honing his craft at receiving, and is now the Bucs 4th Wide Receiver behind 2009 sensation Sammy Stroughter. How far Spurlock goes with the Bucs comes down to his value at both positions, but so far its become obvious, Spurlock is NOT a one trick pony any longer. And Michael is still running.
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