Ryan Leaf | Ep. 134 | ALL THE SMOKE Full Episode | SHOWTIME Basketball

it's in there. Yeah. I don't want to though. Man, today we got a man that former number two pick, Hell of a Journey just released Hell Long Relicia Doctor. We released in mid football season. We just kind of we just we did. We released it every Tuesday and it was a series, right. We did ten episodes My story from my birth until where I'm at right now? Man, how was that for you? I mean, you know, obviously very well documented, but it's it's been a rocky journey.

How do you are? Are you in a space now we're talking about the bad times? Doesn't bother you? Yeah, there's a ton of acceptance right and surrender to like I have no control over that anymore. I can just control now and I know that it's going to help somebody maybe struggling or where I'm at, and I'm super relatable now, Like when people listen to it, they go, yeah, that's my dude up all the time too. I'm just like him, and there's a way out of it, there's

a solution to it. Also, like I watched Tom Brady and we have one of the most most amazing things in common. We both played professional football. But I look at that dude and I'm just like, I can't relate to him. He is too perfect, right, And so this was just an opportunity for me to kind of do what I do, but do it in a raw, uncensored, vulnerable, transparent way in my voice. So it's me in front of a microphone for ten episodes telling you exactly how story.

No one can tell your story better. And really that's the first step being accountable. That's on the way you can, you know, get to the next But when people want to listen, you know what I mean, that's that was beautiful.

What was it like for you? Because I remember, I mean, obviously I've been through some ship on and off the court, and I feel like if I'll be forty two next month, but I feel like at like thirty being able to just really look at yourself in the mirror and like find your faults in what you did, being able to forgive yourself and move forward. How was that process for you? It happened in prison. Um Like, when I went to prison, I had never been marginalized before. I grew up in

a predominantly you know, white suburban um. And when that judge kind of you know, he looked at me and said, you have no value to society. I'm gonna warehouse you and give you a number. You know, I never experienced anything like that. So I went in there with a well defeat his attitude at first, and for about two years, I didn't I didn't do anything. I got fat, I got lazy. I thought I was doing everybody a service by not being in the public, being around my community.

You know, that was the most selfish thing I could have done. My family wanted me back, and my roommate he was he was an Afghan Iraqi war bet and he just one day had enough of my ship, I guess, and was just like, you don't understand the value that you have not only the men in here, but when you get out, because you're gonna get out at some point Ryan. So he says, we're going down to the prison library and we're helping prisoners learn how to read

who don't know how to read. And I was just like I had many of those that come to Jesus moments in my life, coaches, mentors and stuff, and I just flipped in the bird, you know, and I went begrudgingly. I mean I went, maybe because I don't know why I went to tell you the truth, but I remember walking down that hallwins Red jumpsuited in prison, thinking this is stupid. This isn't gonna help me, Like, doesn't even know how I'm poor, and I am the irony of that.

And a guy and I've read prisons who thinks he's still important. So I walked into this room and there's these men where you're not supposed to show any vulnerability at all because I get you hurt or and fifty year old man look at me and go, Ryan, I can't read, you know, can you help me? Growing up in Montana, where's a huge cowboy culture that in locker rooms my whole life, I've never seen another man look at me and say, I'm sucking hurt in here? Can you help me? Never seen it, so how am I

supposed to do it or understand it? And so it flipped a switch in terms of perspective and what I needed to do, and it was about being a service and it could never be about me again selfless. What did you learn about yourself from the year ten part series and how has the response been? Kind of a two part question. Well, I I didn't know if I was a great storyteller or not, but I had a really good teacher, essentially Kevin Connolly. I don't know ifage.

So Kevin produced it with me and my wife, and they know me better than anybody, and I needed to trust somebody. So when I sat in there and we recorded probably twenty five hours worth of stuff, and there were days where I could roll five hours, but then there were days like like the prison episode, it was it was, you know, the hour and a half and I was just emotionally drained. But I also know it's not gonna hurt me anymore. It's going to be a reminder.

So I think I learned that to your question there, I learned that from all this, And then the response has been overwhelming. Right, I've never thought that, you know, simply my story, but the people reaching out who are either going through something or a family or have gone through something, and how meaningful it's meant. I would have never had this kind of impact if I had a you know, played twenty years in the NFL on a couple of Super Bowl they just wouldn't have. Well, I

think that's what you know. Sometimes the athletes we were forgetten and people who aren't athletes forget like we're normal people, you know what I mean. I think you sharing your story makes and Jack and I, you know, because we had a misconception of who we were as athletes, and we've been able to kind of really tell who we are and tell our own narrative. You know, you're telling your own story, but we don't don't sometimes like device versa.

We don't realize they don't realize, but how relatable we are and we go through the same ship, but it's just on the biggest stage, you know what I mean, Like we can't recover in private like we recovered in

front of the world. Yeah, And it's uh, I think that just because we're good at something like like the best in the world at doing it, that we're not really messed up everywhere else pretty much like a terrible coping mechanisms and everything else I did, like if I couldn't play football or sports in general, Like I was a mess. I was bad with girls. I was bad with with communication. I mean anything outside of being on a court or being on a football field trying to

kick your ass. That was it tell us about your upbringing? Well it was. It was different because I'm the old me. I'm the only Montana who's ever been drafted in the first round. They're more first round draft picks in the Manning family Montana ever, so I didn't have a trailblazer, you know. I was just breaking eggs as I went. All I knew is I wanted to get out. I wanted to be My heroes were the Fat Five, like Jalen Rose was my that was my dude, right, I

wanted to be him. I cut my hair like like it, my black socks and my my yellow shoes, and we had unis like that, and I and I warmed down to my knees. And I was not in a very conservative white Montana town. It was not well received and there was a lot of backlash um and I didn't feel like I could be myself. And then when I finally started being myself, I wasn't accepted and I just said it, I need to get out of this place. Whatever I can to do it. And it was about competing.

I didn't care who you were, what you did. And I burned a ton of bridges through that process, but I got I got where I needed. Um, multi sport athlete, what made you decide to choose Washington State could have pretty much one anywhere? Yeah. Um, they head coach of the football team, he was gonna let me play basketball. A lot of the other football coaches were saying like, no, we don't. We don't want to see the quarterback. That's

that's a risk to play anything else but football. They're like yeah, And he was like He's like, whatever you want to do to to keep competitive, keep that edge. Um. But I also think he was doing whatever he could to recruit me. And I bought it. Hook client a sinker, Come here, you can play whatever you want. We're gonna go to a Rose Bowl together. Yeah. I buy what you're selling. I didn't do any research. I hadn't realized

they han't been to a Rose Bowl since ninety one. Um, so it was a leap of faith, right, it was a leap of faith. I walked on the basketball team, UH played shorte stuff for the baseball team that freshman year. And then after that he came to me and he said, you know you could you could make a living right stop. That's a tough position. That's the best athlete right there in baseball. Shops up lead Washington State to their for is tim pec PEC ten championship finalists for the Heisman

named All American. I mean it seems like in Kyege you had everything you can ever imagine. Yeah, it was pretty special. I mean I had a great team. Though I got a lot of the accolades, but I mean we had we had five wide receivers, we had an offense line of defense that made huge plays, and we were really senior laden I was, I was underclassman, but but we had a lot of guys that have put in the work. And we had a bunch of guys that back in the day where you can do Prop

forty eight. So I don't know if you guys remember that or not, where you don't qualify and they can get you to junior college or get you there and get you ready playing with a ton of those guys, especially from down here in l a Um that became some of my best friends and some of our best players. And coach Price did a tremendous job of I mean, you walk into a room in south central l a And tell the mom of a prospect that you know your son is gonna be up here in Pullman. He

doesn't have to lock his doors anything in life. Different life. You know, we can he can feel, you can feel safe and and get to be and express who he is. And that was pretty cool. And that's I learned a lot that way too. I mean, all the accolades, you know, seemingly seemingly in college. What was it like for you mentally though? Were you at that point fighting any demon struggling or was it what did that come a little

bit later? I mean, it's always been there. I think, you know, once you get placed on that pedestal and consequences aren't the same for you, You kind of there's a bit of arrested development. I didn't develop some of the key things or life skills that I needed to deal with adversity. And then I always want, like I always go back onto a quarter or field and and and dominate no matter how I messed up or something like that, be like, wipe it away. You're so good,

they would wipe it away. And college was kind of the same thing. You know, if I acted out or if I misbehaved, or I was just you know, and I used the bravado of who I was on the football field and who I was off it. I almost had to like Dennis Robin was a huge influence. He became a friend of mine when I got to the NFL, and I just I saw ah who he wasn't. He just went all in on who that was because people

already telling him he was that. So when people started attributing the black hat to me, I was just like, fuck it, Yeah, I'm fine with that. We want to be the golden child. I'm gonna I'm gonna whoop your ass and I'm gonna tell you about it. And I don't I don't know why. I don't know why I did it. I wasn't that guy. I didn't think that way. I just wanted to be like, I'm just his redneck from Montana who loves sports and wants to be liked. That's that's pretty much who I was. And and I

never really truly could be that guy. And and when things get tough and when things get bad, um, my talent wasn't wasn't enough to carry me through it all before ago you're saying your season and the draft, Well, how did that process come about? Well, I mean I was coach came to me and said, after the Rose Boys, like you know, the draft, the scouts say you're gonna be the first pick of the second pick, and Peyton are going to be the guy ponny. So what am

I supposed to do? I'm supposed to be out to college, maybe get hurt, uh, maybe not play as well because we were gonna lose twenty eight seniors. Um, and now I'm drafted you know later where we're talking about maybe you know, my contract was thirty million dollars as a twenty one year old kid, So I didn't know what That's the only thing I knew what to do. And I also loved the idea that I was so good that I could leave college early to go do it like that was even a more prideful thing in all

of it. And so I jumped at it and went through the whole process. Uh, And you know I was going to be the first to the second pick in the NFL draft. And that's the way it all shaped out. NFL combine, Randy Moss, all these people in your class. What was that like? That was pretty cool? Um. Peyton and I were roommates and we we we we weren't gonna do nothing. We looked at each other, We're like, we're going one and two. Man, let's you know, how

was he though? How was he as a person when we've we met during my my sophomore year, simply because we both knew we were gonna be tied to one another, and our s I D S put us in touch. And back in the day right where no cell phones, you had to set a time where you're gonna be at home wine rings, and I remember my boys were all sitting around drinking beers and playing dominoes and and uh and the phone rings and it was that time.

And I go pick it up and actually telling him, and I hear the Southern draw on the end, and I was like, it's it was always that guy, because I thought I was. I don't know if I ever felt like I was there, peers it was I should have been, because I was just a talented. It's just good. But I just could never like after games, I'd be not like these days where they exchanged autographed jerseys and like doing for pictures. Like we beat Steve Young and

the fourty niners in my first preseason game. I whipped his ass and I walked. I walked up to him in the shaking his hand, and I'm like an autograph, you know, And it's so I don't know it. I still look back in those days finally, but it was it was I just didn't necessarily think I'd probably fit. That's interesting. So when it comes down, I mean again, he's your roommate in the combined it's one too. It

could a flip with the coin. Really, you end up going to San Diego, beautiful city, by the way, what's your first impression of that? Well, that was, you know, and he was really close to draft in me and my agent and I went to and said, then't go there. I wasn't thinking about the right thing. So I wasn't thinking about having Marshall Falcon, Marvin Harrison in the backfield, beach, the babes money all that I was. I wasn't thinking about the right For whatever reason, I wanted. That was

the goal. It was always the goal to be a professional athlete. And maybe I didn't. I didn't see past that. And when I got there, I was like boom. And I also didn't think money was going to change me. I didn't think it. My dad is a two tour Vietnam veteran. He's worked his tail off. Um, we never wanted for anything, but we never saw any moneys they went through, but you know they did. They just didn't let us see it. And I just thought I would.

He was frugal. I just thought what I Money changed me? You know, all those character defects that were there are now louder, were just louder because of the money. And I thought that money, power and prestige made you success. It's everything I thought I had seen. Right, I had all this money, all this power, and now the prestige should be in a starting NFL quarterback. Like, no one could tell me anything. You rarely hear someone admit that

ship though, like money changed me. I don't think I've ever heard be honest about that, you know what I mean? Although it changes a lot of people, is interesting that you know, to have that perspective. Um, when you don't experience the media success you had not only in college but throughout your playing career when you get to the NFL. How hard is that? Well, I had a media six success.

We won our first two starts that hadn't happened since, and John Elway, so like PEPSI came in and gave me a big deal Rolex Toyota, and I'm just like Peyton lost his first two starts. I'm like, okay, I'm killing a ship, right, And then we go to then we go to Arrowhead, Kansas City, and uh, who's the

quarterback there at the time, Rich Gannon. And the week before we played Tennessee Steve McNair Eddie George in in Tennessee and we beat him, and I slide on the turf and it was in the old Vanderbilt Stadium before they built a with the new spot, and I got a turf burning. I was wearing these tights outside of uh my socks and like melted and burnt into my skin. And I got a staff affection that week. So I was in the hospital all week long leading up to

Kansas City, and I was I didn't care. I was gonna play like I was just tough s O B. I'm gonna show the team I'm here, I'm I'm a winner. So they're bringing film over to me in the hospital and and uh, I go, I fly, Um we warm up. They shoot me up with whatever they needed to. I don't felt like adrenaline. Then I was firing it around. All of a sudden, the skies start closing in and dumping and it becomes a monsoon. I complete my first pass and then proceed to go one for fifteen four yards,

two interceptions, three phonels like seven sacks. The worst performance, humiliating performance of my life. And it's not just about that. It's what I do after the game. I came remember back in the day, those cameras with a huge battery in the locker room. They're spinning around sometimes while standing up, and he spun it around. It smoked me right in the head and like split me and I lost it on this dude, like dressed him down. I just played

the worst game of my life. Was completely embarrassed, you know, took it out on a guy. You know. The reporter was inside there. He was a beat writer documented it. Monday. I'm driving into the facility. It's all over the papers that incident. So, um, we do the gaggle, you know, postgame stuff with the reporters. I asked him to stand around a little bit later. Um, and then I proceed to tell him why it is right. I'm the big

tough to make football life. Grab his ass, I throw him in the chair and I start motherfucking him up and down. And the cameraman in the corner flips around and starts getting this. And this is the viral video which didn't it was viral videos didn't exist back then, and this is like one of the first ones. And that's the picture you see of me acting like a petulant child braiding the reporter. Junior say, I was gonna come in and grab me. He pulls me into the shower,

turns it on cold. He used to call me baby boy, Uh said, baby boy. Cooled down. We'll get some dinner after this. Just just cool down. And uh, it became this big thing, right Um. And then then my dad was in town some of his clients and everything like that, and uh, inside the NFL which is on the showtime was on HBO at the time, and it it played uncensored, you know, and we're all watching, and my dad clients are there watching in the house. I'm on, damn boy,

your son looks great. He helps me craft an apology. And if you watch me the next day reading this apology, I don't want to be there. I think it. I think what I'm doing is wrong. I believe I'm the victim and all this, and you can see the disdain. I read it then and then just kind of flip it into the locker and that, and then I fight the media the rest of the year, and I play poorly. You know, you can go be an asshole and go

out and ball and it doesn't matter. That's always been my life, Like I could have been an asshole to everybody else, but I go get it done on the field. I threw four picks against the Giants. Next week, they had to make a wish commercial that I did up on the jump with on midgame and it got booed.

It was it precipitous boom like that. I don't remember another positive thing in my NFL career, and I would go on play for four years simply because I couldn't deal with failure in a healthy positive What was the locker room light? What was it teammates. Like around this time, it started to get progressively worse because report We're writing things in the paper, guys on the team, we're leaking stuff bacons teammates and I just had a relationship, had

a relationship with my teammates through the media. There wasn't a right there was one guy in a team, uh, I mean, Rodney Harrison was like was my roll dog. We did everything together, and I I should have just I should have grasped it onto their him and juniors like coattails and just saw how they did it and went about my business that way. And I did, and I just thought I had all the answers, and it just there's a reason why at this level you only get one shot. If you you mess it up, you

don't get that you don't get that other shot. When you look back now, obviously very self aware and the accepting of the way you used to be. When you know when the labels arrogant or too good or any you hear any of that stuff, like how does that make you feel? Now? I mean, I'm human, right, so any kind of anything critical it's just it's it's hard to here, but I'm I'm more self aware The definition humility I found to be is that the guy I look in the mirror at, I'm okay with that guy.

That's what humility is. I understand who I am, and I'm okay with it. I'm on this flawed human being like everybody else, trying to be better every single day and fucking mess up all the time. I'm a new dad, really screwing up with that, you know, you know, raising a kid, being a partner to my wife, all these things, trying to navigate the business world. Uh, you know when when you're when you're labeled this thing. And also I'm a seven time felon right, That's that's that's it. That's

that's who I am. And I know, like I don't take things for granted anymore because I know that I am blessed if I do the next right thing, Like amazing things happened for me, where it doesn't maybe for other people who have gone through the same things I have, especially guys that don't look like me. And so I'm really aware of that, and so I try to try to be his understanding about it. And when things don't go my way, I just I'm not quick to react

and go fuck them. You know, I'm just like, I only can control what I can control, right, I just gotta work harder. And I wasn't that guy before, and so I had to be had. I had to wake up on the floor of the prison cell floor and for me to be humbled. Maybe you know, you thought when somebody would slapped you around the head and staid get get right, or or or you lose everything, or your drug, drug addict, all that stuff, it wasn't that.

It was it was waking up on that floor just going like, this is your life and if you're okay with it, then you can just stay here. When you start getting all this and like you said back then, it's the papers and and in the TV a little bit. But all this negative press, what is that? When? What do you do to cope with that? Surround myself with yes man who tell me that, uh, that I'm the victim,

that's they're fucking fault. It's not yours. Uh. And then everybody that was you know who unconditionally loved me and wanted to show me the mirror I pushed out of my life. Right, Um, I was the golden goose. So the guys that were the yes men they weren't gonna they We're gonna turn down that ride. They'll be like, co man, we gotta get you some help. We gotta we gotta try to right this train. They were like,

I mean, we're going to Vegas every weekend. We're on private planes, you know, the women going to the Playboy mansion. I'm being a huge football fan. Obviously the world misses him, but this is one of your best. Um, explain your relationship with Junior. Say, Julian, we went to dinner with Julian Edelman and Brenda marshall night and it was Juliane we's talking about him about Jia said, oh yeah, what kind of guy he was. Say, Junior played with Julian

and at the end of his career. I mean, he he's the epitome of a football player that it just dude, show up at six. It was the hardest worker, practiced his ass off. Any I mean, when you go see Hall of Famers, you see Hall of Famers and you see great players and you see, you know, NFL guys, dude six five to fifty and can outrun everybody, right, just a monster and played so hard and uh but just like everybody else, like he was a great football player.

He struggled with some other things, right, He struggled with how to how to be seen in the public and be supposed to be the savior of San Diego, you know, because he's from there and everything like that. There's a ton of pressure on him. And then ultimately, you know, he remember I was I saw the news when he when he was in the accident where he drove off a bluff in San Diego, and everybody was just like, oh, you know, he fell asleep or this, that and the other.

And I remember point of a couple my boys down here, I said that dude, he tried to kill himself. I knew it because I I had the same feeling. And then so when you know, about a year later, when we heard that he took his own life, I was just I mean, sometimes I have so much survivors guilt because I'm like, why the funk am I here? Like if that guy would have a better message than I would, he would make such a more impactful statement or platform than I would, So I have this guilt around it.

And because his message would have been so impactful, and um, I missed him. I mean, we we lost touch for a while, but I think it's a big reason why what I do now is about the NFL brotherhood. There's only twenty seven thousand of us ever hundred years less with you guys, I'm assuming. And we've seen guys die alone in hotel rooms since Jackson, and I was, and I know exactly how they feel because I was there. I was alone in a hotel room dying and I couldn't ask for help, and if I did, I didn't

believe anybody would be there for me anyway. Uh, And so it makes me incredibly sad, and I don't ever want to see it happen again. So we're trying to be there for one another. That's why people need to see that dot because like people don't understand everybody is human and everybody is going through something something. It might not be on TV, you know, it might not be all do social media and the tablist, but everybody, regardless rich, poor, not,

everybody's going through something, you know what I mean. And if you look at life like that, you can never assume, you know. And when I get angry at somebody, I'm like, well, I don't know what's going on with him or her, just on your own ship, Ryan, and and and move forward. And that's that's worked. Every single day is different, it's a different adjustment, it's different things. But you know, when I decided to do this podcast, it was in the

hopes that somebody who needed to hear it. And it's every green right, and you can listen to it tomorrow, you can listen to it a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, if you need it or your family needs it. It's just it's always going to be there. And that's the transition of wh when we leave our sports, when we take our uniforms off, because the identity is so who we are, and if you were failed one or if you had a misstep along the way, that's attached to it too, and dreads

with you. You have to find that new purpose. What is that going to be? And I didn't know what that was gonna be. I didn't know what it was going to be, and now I do, And so there's purpose every morning when I wake up. You finish your rookie season on the sideline due to a shoulder injury, what's that like on the professional level? Being there watching it struggling but then not being able to get out

there and kind of redeem yourself. I've never been hurt in my life right ankle, you know, turning it ankle, go up and dunk on somebody come down on their ankle. I still get shivers when I think about that, not the dunking part, broke blowing your ankle out part. But I've never been hurt where I couldn't play, like bones had to be coming out of my body where I wouldn't play. But I tore my labor im in my

right shoulder, which was my life. I couldn't throw the football, so I went and I missed my entire second season where you're supposed to make that jump as a rookie, right, and I couldn't do it. And I and if I'm not active, like if I'm not moving like a shark at all times, like you don't want to be inside my head, right, it's fucked up, right, And so you know I need help with that. And I just I

surrounded myself the wrong people. I wasn't playing um all of it and every day because I'm supposed to be the savior it's written about and talked about and this that and the other, and the word bust started being brought up, and I'm just it just took me down a terrible path. Um. I ultimately came back, uh and was named the starter in year three, but we had a new head coach. We didn't win our first two games. I got benched. Um, it's good story about that in

the podcast. I don't know if I could just go listen to. I was so angry. I got bench through the media. I was driving in and I heard it on the radio and I pulled it into the facility. I walked up the stairs and head coach's office is like hangs over the back and he's got a balcony there, and I was so like, I walked in and motherfucked him up and down and I feel like I got black eyes, Like I don't know if I hung him out over the top of the bottony here, so I

don't know if his kids were there. I didn't know what was going on. I was just so pissed and like the oppulsive nature of of a football player and who thought he was wrong and all that ship. So it's it's Um. The storytelling has been a trip. Two thousand, two thousand one, he was preparing for a comeback talk about that. Yeah, you know the surgery, right, you go take the surgery, go down and work with the specialists

in Birmingham, Alabama. Get right, come back, go up against the likes of Jim Harbaugh, who ended up being my backup. I win the job. I go down to Atlanta in our last preseason game at ball right, nine for nine in the first drive, a touchdown, Get handed the job, cover Sports Illustrated right back from the brink, you know, and we weren't very good. I wasn't very good, um,

you know. I I didn't understand what kind of work ethic it took, especially when things got bad, and I didn't realize what I was starting to develop was a mental illness depression, right because I was I felt lazy. I was having a hard time getting out of bed. I felt sad all the time. I wasn't in joying what I was getting to do, which is what I love to do since I was four years old. I didn't understand it. I just thought I was you know,

I just thought I was weak. And so after that comeback didn't pay out and I popped around from Tampa to Dallas to Seattle, I just I just thought I was so sick and tired of getting beat up physically and mentally from from critics and everything like that. I just I thought I'd be able to disappear drained. You was drained. I was just physically and mentally done. But I thought I had all those things that still made

me a success, the money, power, prestige. The prestige was gonna be tarnished a little bit now because I was I wasn't a starting NFL quarterback, but I was still a former quarterback. Come on, now, still walk me into Vegas and get everything I need and want and all the I guess, the notoriety I want. I like being famous, right care if it was for the negative or positive things. At that point, people looked at me and I was a rich, famous person. So you write your risk step back?

What was going on there in your mind? Uh? They're like, now this ship just I just figured out I've never I just thought I was never going to be the guy again, and that wasn't okay with me. I also had this mindset that like, if I'm not a starting quarterback, then I can't play. When I realized that you can, you tell me you can pay like these backups now, they make seven ten million dollars and they never take

a snap. There's a bunch of guys that have played like ten twelve years that I have more touchdowns and more passing yards and and they've made fifty sixty million dollars. I mean, it's great for them, but that was available to me if I do have just chosen instead, I'm in Seattle. Then I walked into Mike home Wars office and I said, I'm done. I'm out out after four years. Right, I think I wanted to do since I was four years old, because I couldn't tell him like, I'm really

struggling here. Damn, I can't get out of bed. I'm lazy. And you would have hoped he would have looked at me and said, all right, let's get you, let's figure it out. It's get you some help. Maybe I'm a starting quarterback in Super Bowl forty gains the Steelers, you know, who knows, who knows. But I wasn't capable at that time of asking for help. And I just figured I'll be fine. Football will go away, people forget about me, and I'll just live this lifestyle. So you damn you

walk away after four years? Where if you don't mind sharing light. The drugs came in and how deep did you get into drugs? Yeah, in Vegas about three months after I retired. Quit. Uh, We're at the MGM Grand I think it was Dala Hoya fight or something like that. You guys have been to Vegas for fighting be the coolest thing in States, Like the adrenaline in the room

and everything like that leading up to it. And I like that, um, and I like Vegas because I wasn't the most famous guy in Vegas, so I could kind of go and do whatever the hell I want and people really weren't focused on Yeah. And so we're there and when they give you those great seats ringside and stuff, they announced Susan in the audience. So they announced there was Tiger was in the audience. Was Charles Barkley and Dr Dre and all these The audience just went nuts.

And then and I'm just kind of like, don't, don't and they'd say my name and that whole Grand Garden arena, fucking boot. It's not like that hadn't happened before. We're going to the Posting Stadium, you know what it's supposed to happen there, though, right, and you have arm aroun when you play football, like you can want to do

something about it? What my attic mine? Because I was a drug a drug addict long before I ever took a drug, I believe that my attic mind heard not only you were a terrible football player, but you were a shitty human being. That's what I heard it sure enough, an acquaintance of mind. That night at a party where there were Super Bowl champions and Hall of Famers were I always felt less than and judged, offered me some Viking And now I'd taken Vica in my whole life

after surgeries, I knew what it did. It worked, It dealt with my physical pain. This would be the first time I took it from my emotional pain and the call of pain killers for a reason. Man, it did it made me feel better, made me feel nothing. And I've been searching for that feeling of not feeling anything for so long and I found it. And that would be the next eight years of my life, guys, just chasing that initial like not feeling the guilt and shame of who I'd become or what I had done, or

what I was going to have to do. All of it I had friends in high school that got addicted to pain killers and and I it was I saw, I mean from Viking into Norcos and you know, i'd see kids take how was it that heavy? I had to take a hunterd milligram, So yeah, I would, depending on what kind of potency it was. Right. I'm just surprised my liver didn't crap out from all the tile and all that was in that um and I and I didn't search for anything else, like, I didn't move

on to heroin or something like. I liked what it made me feel like. That made me feel like like I wasn't looking for uppers. I wasn't looking for coke or anything like that. I felt like I was already wired. I wanted to be sedated, you know. I didn't want to feel anything. I didn't want to feel all that failure. I didn't want to feel when people booed me or told me I was a piece of ship or or a bust. I didn't want to feel any of that stuff.

And this worked. Now, it goes away quickly, and that's what the what tolerance does and what your addiction does. Then I had to then I had to chase it and I had to chase it so I didn't feel that way every and I would look in the mirror every night, thinking, you fucking junkie, you piece of shit. But the only way to get rid of that take more. Let's take more, because then you don't feel like it's just vicious cycle, the psychology of it all. And I

would find them. I ultimately started breaking into houses right in around my hometown, um to find these bills because I didn't know what drug dealer, and they were in my hand. They weren't even my system, but they got in my hand. I'm leaving a house and getting my car going, they were in my hand, and I knew everything was gonna be okay for damn, a little bit right, for a little bit. So arrested on burglary, theft, drug charges in your hometown, like criminal, I'm a bad criminal.

How does it are you still so much in a fog that you don't realize like damn, like I was the man here, got out. Now I'm back in my hometown for the wrong reasons, doing the wrong thing. Did it hit you then or hit you later? Nothing hits you then because all you're chasing is that you don't care what the consequences. You're ultimately the ultimate. Not feeling that anything would be to die and I wouldn't feel anything ever again. So I was like at that point

after I got arrested. I got arrested on a like a Friday, and I bonded out because I'm so fearful. Um. But then I didn't have pills and I had to figure out and I couldn't figure it out, so I googled how to kill myself. I'd slit my wrist. You can see the scar still there. I see it every day. It's a reminder. It didn't work. I went and found more pills. I took them um, and got arrested for

the second time in forty eight hours. And then I wouldn't get out after that one help thirty two thirty two months in prison, and that's where you kind of felt like you hit rock bottom. And two there was nowhere up. It wasn't even that, you know. I almost felt like that, Okay, this is where, this is where life is. So I don't think I ever hit rock bottom. Tell you the truth, like rock bottom is when you

don't get back up, that's rock bottom. You know. I bounced, I didn't and it for how long ever it took me to figure out how to be a human being. It it took what it took, and so um and luckily I'm still here because a lot of guys, and in particular, I think that the act that I was famous and the consequences were quick and severe, and the spotlight was on me. I feel I could save my life because there's so many of my peers or people

who go through what I went through. Do it in the shadows or do it in the dark, and then they're gone and no one knows. And so you know a lot of people say to me like, hey, you know, uh, that must have been so hard to do in the public eye. Yeah, but it probably saved my life. Said it would have been in the dark, and no one would have sayn that I would have been dead. What was it like once you got out? Where was your

mind that at that particular time. Well, you know, I had hope, and I had developed that hope because of the things I told you guys about earlier. We I started helping guys, being of service. But I had nothing right. I did have my mom and dad, who God bless him, unconditionally loved me. They never wanted the famous football playing son. They just wanted me, and they were there outside the prison that day December and they picked me up. Now I had nothing. I had no money left. I couldn't

rub two pennies together, had no place to go. I had no prospects, like you know, Fox and ESPN were coming knocking on my door, Hey Ryan, you want to come, you know and work for us. Nothing at a credit score like five um curls weren't lined up to date me. I just had this hope it was maybe I don't know. So when I get back, my parole officers like I

wanted to go to treatment. I knew I needed to go to treatment for physically, it's like three pounds to stroke out from high blood pressure, and I needed I needed physical and emotional rehabilitation. So I asked to go to treatment. It's like, no, we don't hear that. I gets out of institution, wants to go to an institution again. I said, you're gonna punish me because I want to set a president h So I still got stuck there in that hometown, in my parents basement on their couch.

Now it's more than a lot of people get when they get out of prison, right they don't have anywhere to go, so they go back to doing what they're doing. So I'm incredibly grateful, and I understand that I had much more than a lot of people. Get at a roof over my head which started and then I thought, Okay, what was I doing in there? How do I go about doing that? And it was about being a service. So I started. I was a Nike rep. I had Nike.

Nike was my my endorser, and I, you know, every year we get that a lot mint and I spent it every year, and I kept all that stuff and it was all in the storage facility. So I started going to my storage facility, and when guys that I knew in prison were getting out, I put together a duffle bed and I would go down to the mission and I said, if you were in Great Falls, Montana in the winter of two thousand fourteen, you saw the most swagged out homeless and people Jordan's and uh everything.

Nike and I got rid of it all and I didn't tell anybody about it. I just went and did it um And then I started volunteering for that stuff, and either my parole officer saw what I had done and there was some evidential reproof. He let me go to California to seek treatment, and that's where this all started and how I got to l A and it really paved the way for for how I got here to You guys, how long do you feel like it really took you once you got to that treatment facility

to feel like but what do we call it? A new person or yourself? What would you call it? I don't. I mean, it's I'm ever evolving. Still, I'm better today than I was last year, and that's always going to continue. And once that starts stopping, and then I gotta have to go back to the drawing board, right and figure out where I'm where I'm when I'm messing up. A couple of weeks into treatment prison, still kind of in

my head, I was watching TV. Guy comes in and wants to watch something else, and I just kind of, you know, big, big time in a little bit, you get the hell out of here. And I was, you know, I'm I'm a big guy. And when I say that, when I say fuck it, kind of it's there's a incentivized way about the way I do it. And uh, and I can't imagine these people. They're looking at this dude six seven, you know at the time, two eight pounds or something like that, you know, like being impulsively angry,

and they're going through their own stuff. And then when I got shown them mirror like, Ryan, this is who you were in this moment. This was old behavior. I was like, fuck you, I'm gone. That's always been my thing. And I left treatment. But the difference in me that time as I went back and said I was sorry and asked if I could come back, and I'd never done that in my life. I'd always pointed my finger to everybody else and said it's your fault. And that

was the switch. And I think back now to it now, and I feel like that was the switch, the change that that was completely degrees different than who I had been my whole life. So you get out of treatment, um, do you feel like you can accomplish anything? At that point, you feel like you can. But then you realize that, I go get a job and the job pays fifteen bucks an hour, and you've made millions of the story. Right. I went and got this job working in a recovery house.

I was gonna be a driver for the guys who were newly sober and everything like that. And he tells me it's fifteen bucks an hour. And the only reason I say that because I was making five million dollars a year and I felt like I was miserable and I was a miserable person and this guy had just offered me a job fifteen bucks an hour, you know, Like I felt more value than I ever felt my life. I remember that first paycheck, it was like three something like that, and I took a picture and I sent

to my parents, like money. I know what money is for now. Money makes the lives better for my son and my family. It's not about me. And every time I had any money in my pocket, I made it about me and it just exacerbated my character defects. So um, I understand the value of it and the inherent value it gives me and what it makes me being uh, someone who speaks on your past and kind of a public speaker. Now, what is it that you preach and hope that people take away from listening to you that

if I can do this, anybody can that. My hope is to destigmatize mental illness and substance abuse. Everybody deals with it. Everybody goes through it, whether you know somebody you've been through it or or you've dealt with it yourself. Uh, And it's okay not to be okay, Like we're all funked up, And I don't think that the last two years couldn't have shown that better to all right, and how we need to be here for one another, like every life is precious and fully understanding that, So um,

that's the hope. And then the understanding is that it can never be about me again. So when I go speak somewhere, it can't be about me ultimately at the end, getting some applause for sharing my story, but it's about that one individual in the back of the room. It couldn't take his eyes off me because guess what, Uh you know, he knows as soon as he gets home, he's got to get some more pills to make sure

his life is in order. And so, like I told you guys earlier, I I would never have the impact that I'm going to have if I had just been a good football player. This is your path, crazy foot path back in TV and radio now talking football. Yeah, I mean you start grinning instantly. How good does that make you? Feel football gave me everything and for a long time it was toxic for me. But football didn't do anything to me. I did it to myself. Um,

and I love talking about it. I've I've forgotten more football than most people know, right, and I'm really good at it. I didn't know if I was gonna be good at it or not. And I went shadow guys that have been in the business for a while, and I'm like, I really would like to do that. And luckily,

and I don't take this for granted anyway. People have given me an opportunity when they didn't have to, Like these these corporations didn't have to, Like you know, when I fill out the background background check, right, I'm I'm a felon, and that's always going to be there, right. So if I don't get hired because of that, there's consequences to my action, I fully understand it. Um. My

hope is that they get to know me. They see how hard I work, how good I'm at what I do, and my character is different from what they know and here, and that's what you want to see when people get out of prison, every everybody, and so we do a ton of work with with my my foundation and anybody I can to help those so the recidivism rate goes down. Right. We don't want people going back because this country loves guys going back. They're playing on money, these prisons business.

And I was in one in Montana. I was in a private, for profit prison, and so I see how it works. Right. It's more beneficial for d a's and UH judges to send you to prison and anything anything else because if you're not in there, there's the states still paying for bed, whether it's filled or not a cap on it. So we're working hard for it. I mean, I don't get down when things don't go right because I'm like, we're just gonna We're gonna eat a piece every day. Somebody told me to how do you eat?

How do you eat an elephant? You're like one bite at a time to be part of the solution, real quick, coming down to the end, um fatherhood, What does that mean to you? And like you said early on, you you struggle that at the beginning, where are you at in that process? The best thing I've ever done? Right, Um, there's something about when they lay them in your arms and you realize or this wave of selflessness just overwhelms. You're like, everything I do from this point on it

is going to be about him. That's it. And I'm fearful. Um, you know, you know d N a mental illness. I'm fearful of all those things. But I also have a lot more knowledge. How about go about being a dad differently? My dad, I love him, He's my hero. You know, he came home from the war. They spit on him. He wasn't really vulnerable or transparent or anything like that.

So I never saw it. I'm I want my son to understand fully that, like it's okay to show that it's not weakness, it's it's actually a strength and uh and you'll be more relatable to people and everything like that. So, I mean, he's only four right now that cares about his Uh it's gymnastics training, but he calls it ninja training. Right now. What he cares about that transformers and his swords and so, um, you know, we're working on working

on the things that we need to work. And I got a great partner, m HM who helps me along the way. She uh she produced the podcast as well. Um, just really talented and she knows me better than anybody. Um. So she she can call me all that ship better than anybody being a parent. Like we have a lot of success in sports, but what is what do we have that's really ours? Like that's that feeling you have Like I got kids to him when I felt my

youngest daughter and already had kid. But just the feeling of holding it, like you have something that's yours that you can say that's actually yours, but tell of your things, No, not like that, but you made this child. This is your seed, you know what I mean? The feeling of saying something that is actually yours is the best feeling of being a father for me. And I never understood it. And I'm so glad I didn't have a child until I was ready mentally forty forty years old is when

I have my kids, you know. And UM so grateful for that because he's never gonna see his dad as a funked up addict or or a guy that that yells at people and and I mean, he's just never gonna see that version of me, And so I'm really appreciative for that nice quick hitters. First thing that comes to mind. Let us know, if you had a life message put on a billboard, what would it be what it is? It is? Yeah, Stuck on the Island. Three movies or shows you will watch on repeat, The West Wing, Uh,

let's see here, I probably oh, Miracle the Hockey. Yeah yeah, um what those the Dark Knight Dark Nights? I've seen that. It's probably in the works. But if you had a biopic of your life, who would play you? Oh? I don't know. Um. I got a buddy named Jeff Stults. Uh, he's an actor. A train with him sometimes he played quarterback. Uh. I like him. I think I think he would do you pull it off? I think he would do a

hell I love the job. We've to your point. We've been talking to people and I a couple of people they approaches like Chris Pratt or Channing Tatum. You know cool. Yeah, I don't want it to be a boy I wanted to be a documentary. I'll, you know, I'll, I don't know. Did you guys ever see a Tania? No. I wanted if I could do it that way, I would do it in that format, kind of make it self deprecating and have a comedic flare to it because it's a serious subject. But I want it's kind of like how

I take myself. I don't take myself very seriously, subject seriously, but I don't take mysel my pain. Is that what Kevin Hart said, laugh at my pain? Give me your top five college programs of all time? H Washington State one, uh U c l A basketball for sure. We played abandoned brothers, TOLDE. Bailey j R. Henderson tyas Sedney always running to the national title that year I fit. That's where I fitl That's really where I figured out, like, you're not playing bad in Notre Dame. I grew up

a West Virginia fan. Major Harris. It was a quarterback for that team. I wanted to be him, and so I put him up there. I put that team up there on what they were able to accomplish there in Morgantown. I love the bulls they were during my the nineties run. But g P and the Sonics for me with Sean Camp and Debt Left and and McMillan and it's just uh ope, those dudes used to be a fake police officer and pull people over it. I would fly had season tickets for the Sonics and I'd fly up in

g P and then and every was shot. Lewis there at the end, we all go out to Julian's, a billiard place up there in Seattle, and we would we play crafts and play pool and drink our faces off. Ah man, I love those guys. They didn't they didn't care at all where my career kind of went that. They just still love you. They wanted to embrace me. So that's that Sonics team that played the Bulls in that like that that team was. That's one of my

top five five dinner guess that are alive. Uh John F. Kennedy, Michael Jordan's um Kobe Uh Kobe and I came into the league's at the same time in San Diego in l A. His assistant at the time and my assistant went to the same high school, so we did a lot of things together. His career started going like this, might I started going like this. Remember he called me from Italy one time. It was just like it was like trying to be my therapist in the process his

mentality that where it got to. So definitely, definitely I still have his original KB eate Adidas as we go to games and given to my brothers, and I got to the black one with the white stripes yeah, the white ones with yeah crazy eights, yeah and uh yeah, so so Kobe would be one of them. Two more, two more? Okay, President Obama? Um and uh um. I'd probably say Aaron Rodgers because I think he's an amazing

football player. But I'd like to know what the is going on in that mind sometimes, right, I'd like to ask Pepper in with questions, but golf a couple of times, but it was I wasn't, I wasn't those those those are probably good five guys. I probably want to ask questions. If you could have a guest on All the Smoke, who would it be? But before you answer, you, before you answer this question, you have to help us get your answer on the show. Okay, Okay, got it, I

got it. Accept the challenge. I accept that challenge. Um, I would say, um, I always find it incredibly guy named Rob Mendez, Okay, haven't heard that name. He is a He is a guy with no arms, no legs, and coaches in foh. I played football with him on on Tuesday night of this week, and I had him on my radio show this week too, and I was you know, I read this book in prison, Unbroken, about Louis Zamparini, who was an unbelievable sprinter at Torrance, California.

Here went to the Olympics in the thirties in Nazi Germany. And if it weren't for a guy named of Jesse owens Uh. He comes home, he goes to war, he gets shot down uh in a plane, lives for forty some days in a raft um, gets thrown into pow camp with the Japanese and the in the Pacific, and then gets out. And I thought to myself, I'm like, like, if that dude, I can go through all of that

and then come out as a better man. And it wasn't until he got home that he found he had a ton of problems until you addressed him and fixed him. And I'm like, so I look at a guy like that who has no arms and no legs but continues to wake up every day with this optimism and drive. I would recommend it. The dude is amazing. That's a great suggestion. And I got you for Jack, Would you like to do what you normally do at the end

of the show. Now, well, we don't like our guests to come and leave him to hand it, okay, But for you guys, you have to go to All the Smoke Store to get yours. But for you, my brother, we got you some power and a nice little All the Smoke bag coming back. So we are pretty state. You're coming in your time. Honestly, Bro, I appreci you guys taking the time. I mean, I mean, when you have a platform, use it. Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, like I said, the first time, really getting a chance

to meet. But we're not too far off in the age. So I've always followed your story and I just said, I'm a fan of the person, you know what I mean, Like the humility to being able to look yourself in the mirror, be able to bounce back and just understand why you're here. You know, like you said, you could have played twenty years, but your purpose was to go down this to help people. And that's something that you know, we don't we don't get every day, especially in these

kind of times. I mean, we just want to say we really appreciate you. Man. Best of luck on, continue to get better yourself, fatherhood and man, everything else you have going on. He as real as they come. He as real as they come, you know what I mean. So you you cross a lot of people and and they you can't really relate to him because they went

through nothing. You know what I'm saying. The best people that I could set of friends out of people that I love to be around, all the people that went through something, you know what I'm saying, because you and learn something from it and you can also build. So I appreciate you being here. Bro. And like I said, coming on the show, because the guy from Entourage, you called me. Kevin called me in my d M. You know what I'm saying. We talked about it a while back.

So I'm glad we made it happen that a little Kevin has been great. Uh he's a big sports fan. I mean, I told you guys, you guys are like we're the same manche the real house. I want appreciate. So this is mean. This was meaning just town appreciate that man. Thank you. Man. That's a rap. Ryan Leaf. You can find this on Showtime Basketball, YouTube and the I Heart platforms Black Effects. We'll see you all next week.

L A. This is all a smoke a production of The Black Effect and Our Heart Radio in partnership with Showtime