Ryan Leaf speaks for a Touchstone Ranch Recovery event at Cowboy Church. “…it made me feel different, it made me feel better because I could play a silly game.” “I was very good at sports… in a small town if you’re good at something that people admire, you’re placed on a pedestal pretty early and in my case I was head and shoulders above everybody else and that made me stand out.” Leaf said that this contributed to his self-esteem at the time. Leaf grew up in Great Falls, Montana where he says he was placed on a pedestal at an early age. He had a relatively successful with the clubs and was creating ff news all around the country and online. Leaf’s career as an NFL quarterback took place from 1998 to 2002 playing for the San Diego Chargers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks. These days you can test for 10 drugs with a simple urine test kit, so employers can really crack down. Leaf explains how his behavior as a teenager fed into his drug addiction, eventually ending his professional career. Perhaps Leaf’s efforts will get the NFL one step closer to a solution.Ryan Leaf, a former NFL quarterback spoke about his personal experiences with substance abuse at a Touchstone Ranch Recovery event held at Cowboy Church of Erath County. The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging a problem. Leaf’s cry for help is one the NFL needs to honor immediately. It’s a dangerous business that advertises itself as wholesome. The NFL discards its players like fans discarding empty beer cans after a game. A study in 2015 showed that one in six NFL players go bankrupt. Many players experience financial hardship after the NFL. Hundreds of former players reported using pain pills during their stint in the NFL, something they never did in college. The NFL also doesn’t seem to have opioid-use under control, with Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre saying he had to check into rehab facilities three times during his career. We’ve seen more NFL players, like Le’Ron McClain, openly cry for help with mental-health issues on social media. Duerson left a note and revealed he chose that method of suicide with hopes that science could study his brain. We’ve seen multiple NFL players, including safety Dave Duerson and linebacker Junior Seau, died by suicide by shooting themselves in the chest, rather than the head. Doctor Bennett Omalu famously fought with the NFL amid the league’s attempts to discredit his findings on CTE. But we know the NFL has fought to deemphasize the severity of the disease. Per the New York Times, CTE can cause memory loss, confusion, depression and dementia. If we’re talking about mental health, we have to start with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease found in many former NFL players who suffered repeated blows to the head. And in the case of his public speaking in this video, his criticism of the NFL is on-point. After struggling with drug addiction for years, Leaf got clean and has turned to public speaking about his struggle with substance abuse and mental-health problems. But he’s become a forceful spokesman for former players in recent years - a true success story in his post-NFL life. Leaf was a poster child of what NFL draft prospects shouldn’t be, with a failed career after going No. do something!! #igoturback #nflbrotherhood /rQciHiPSgZ I don’t know who needs to hear this, or if I just needed to say it, but I will not continue to stand by and watch my brothers disappear because the multi billion $$$ corporation won’t do the right thing. They don’t get how precious life is, and then I have this (expletive) survivors guilt. “Once you’re bad for the brand, the shield, they could give two (expletive). “They’ll write condolence letters and (expletive) like that, but if they were invested, they’d actually put some money behind the Legends Community and into the mental-health, substance-abuse side of it.” 11, and was reported as missing by his family last week - enough to post his raw thoughts. They are investigating the cause of death.īut Leaf was shaken up by the outlines of the story - Jackson had been staying at the hotel since Jan. Police said there were no apparent signs of trauma. In a powerful Twitter video on Tuesday, former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf put the NFL on blast after retired receiver Vincent Jackson, 38, died in a Florida hotel room on Monday, according to police.
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