Like Barber, but in Own Way, Feely Looks for Path to Influence

Jay Feely has little in common with Tiki Barber, other than a uniform and a vision.

Barber, who is retiring, will play his final regular-season game at Giants Stadium on Sunday. He expects to move on to bigger and more important things: namely, a life defined by deeds outside of sports. A famous person who, by the way, used to play football.

Barber will leave behind the designation that he has had for several years with the Giants, an unspoken moniker like those found in high school yearbooks: most likely to succeed.

In at least one way, Feely, the Giants’ place-kicker, is lined up to be the next Tiki — someone whose fame will probably expand, rather than fade, once football ends.

“If you told me that in 10 years he’d be governor of Florida, I’d say, ‘O.K., I could see that,’ ” Pete McConville, an ESPN producer, said of Feely.

So could Feely, and some of his teammates.

The Giants, largely because they play in a media capital, have long provided players a chance to parlay a playing career into something more. Nearly all the former Giants who remain in the public view are sportscasters.

Barber wants to be different. He sees life as long and football as a game, and he expects to use it as a springboard to weightier endeavors in broadcasting. His model is Matt Lauer, the co-anchor of NBC’s “Today” show, who is known and respected by world leaders and stay-at-home moms. Barber is in negotiations with several networks.

“We share the same vision,” Feely said of Barber. “And that is, we understand that there are a lot more important things than football. We want to be the very best we can be in sports, but we want to do that because we see a greater purpose behind that.”

There are some obvious differences between Feely and Barber. Barber, 31, has spent 10 years with the Giants and is a potential Hall of Famer. He has planned his exit — unsure of the timing until this season — for years.

Early in his career as a running back, Barber and his business manager, Mark Lepselter, mapped out the strategy for his career after football. The plan has been followed rigidly, from small radio jobs to Barber’s stint as a weekly co-host of a morning news show on Fox News Channel. Barber has morphed from player to personality. He was once Barber, as his jersey reads; he is now Tiki, a one-name star to even nonfootball fans.

By contrast, Feely, 30, plays a nomadic position that struggles for respect within locker rooms, living rooms and boardrooms. His plan is nothing but loose ideas. He has no business manager. And one promising post-football option began not with a strategy, but with an e-mail message.

Tired of the bashing of place-kickers by Skip Bayless, the longtime sports columnist and co-host of ESPN2’s “Cold Pizza,” Feely sent the show an e-mail message last fall.

“Point by point, it picked Skip’s argument apart,” the “Cold Pizza” co-host Jay Crawford said. “And it was signed by Jay Feely.”

Giants place-kicker Jay Feely appearing on ESPN2’s “Cold Pizza” last Tuesday.

Producers of the show, a sort of sportscentric “Today” show, were intrigued but unsure if the e-mail message really came from Feely. It did, and they invited him to debate Bayless. Feely, who loves a meaty and measured argument, came across as confident, prepared and funny.

He was invited back to be a co-host of the show for a week last off-season. And since Woody Paige left the show last month, Feely has been a co-host on Tuesdays, the Giants’ day off, the same day Barber is a co-host of “Fox & Friends.”

“He’s got a terrific future in this,” said McConville, who produces “Cold Pizza.” “You can’t teach personality, and he’s got it.”

Feely writes a blog that is part football, part philosophy for nbcsports.com. Other forays into the news media, unintentional and otherwise, have tapped a nonsports audience. Last year, Feely’s wife, Rebecca, signed up the couple to be featured on TLC’s reality show “A Baby Story,” chronicling the birth of their third child.

And after Feely missed three potential game-winning kicks against the Seattle Seahawks in November 2005, “Saturday Night Live” parodied him in a skit titled, “The Long Flight Home: The Jay Feely Story.” Feely, who has otherwise been reliable in his two seasons with the Giants, found it funny, if embarrassing.

Humor and heavy doses of philosophy eased a difficult upbringing. Feely’s older brother, Michael, spent most of his life in a vegetative state. Michael died in 2001 at age 26, when Feely was 25 and about to secure his first N.F.L. kicking job with the Atlanta Falcons. On game days, Feely writes “Michael” on the inside of the sweatband on his left wrist, and “God” on the one on the right wrist.

“Michael never got out of bed, never was able to talk, wasn’t able to communicate in any way, yet had such a dramatic impact on so many people’s lives,” Feely said.

At 16, Feely was a counselor at a camp for children with muscular dystrophy. Counselors spent a week assigned to one child. Feely did it each summer for years.

“I made a decision then that whatever I do, I’m going to have an impact on people’s lives,” Feely said.

Those experiences may steer him toward a career in charity work. His religious beliefs could lead him toward a career as a pastor. His on-air talent may take him to television.

Politics would seem the perfect blend; Feely recognizes this. Like Barber, Feely uses his role as a football player to make connections with powerful people. He has gone out of his way to meet with Senators Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, and Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, and the former congressman Steve Largent, an Oklahoma Republican and a Hall of Fame wide receiver. He has tentatively arranged to have dinner with J. C. Watts, the former Oklahoma quarterback turned congressman (now chairman of J. C. Watts Companies, a lobbying and consulting firm), when the Giants play at Washington next weekend.

“I don’t know what he’s currently reading, but I’m guessing it’s not an autobiography of Morten Andersen,” McConville said, referring to the Atlanta Falcons’ 46-year-old kicker.

Having finished “Freakonomics,” Feely is reading the latest book by Barack Obama, the Illinois senator and potential Democratic presidential candidate.

He does not know where it all may lead. But as Feely watches Barber move from the football field to the unknown, part of him cannot help feeling a twinge of envy — and recognition.

“From the day that I got here, I was always impressed with him,” Feely said. “Impressed with how well he conducted himself, how professional he was, how thoughtful he was about everything he says, everything he does. And how hard he worked to create that opportunity for himself.”