Dré Bly with the Denver Broncos in 2007.
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No. 32, 31 | |||||||||
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Position: | Cornerback | ||||||||
Personal information | |||||||||
Date of birth: | May 22, 1977 | ||||||||
Place of birth: | Chesapeake, Virginia | ||||||||
Height: | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) | ||||||||
Weight: | 185 lb (84 kg) | ||||||||
Career information | |||||||||
High school: | Chesapeake (VA) Western Branch | ||||||||
College: | North Carolina | ||||||||
NFL Draft: | 1999 / Round: 2 / Pick: 41 | ||||||||
Career history | |||||||||
* Offseason and/or practice squad member only | |||||||||
Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
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Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
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Player stats at PFR | |||||||||
Tackles: | 419 |
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Sacks: | 5.0 |
Interceptions: | 43 |
Player stats at NFL.com |
Donald André "Dré" Bly (born May 22, 1977) is a retired American college and professional football player who was a cornerback in the National Football League (NFL) for eleven seasons. He played college football for the University of North Carolina (UNC), and earned All-American honors twice. Bly was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in the second round of the 1999 NFL Draft, and spent four seasons with the Rams, earning a Super Bowl ring with them in Super Bowl XXXIV over the Tennessee Titans. He was selected to two Pro Bowls during his four-year tenure with the Detroit Lions, and also played for the Denver Broncos and San Francisco 49ers.
Bly was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. He graduated from Western Branch High School in Chesapeake, where he was an all-state high school football player as well as a decorated baseball player for Western Branch Bruins.
Bly attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he played for the North Carolina Tar Heels football team. In his redshirt freshman season at UNC, he led the nation with 11 interceptions. He received all-American honors, and is only one of five players in NCAA history to achieve this honor as a freshman (Tony Dorsett, Herschel Walker, Bjorn Merten, and Marshall Faulk being the others). Bly was the only football player in UNC and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) history to receive consensus first-team All-America honors twice in his college career. In his sophomore year, he was one of three finalists for the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Year Award. Bly set the ACC record for career interceptions (20), which was later broken by Alphonso Smith of Wake Forest (21). He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2014.