Ryan Leaf wants to be a role model for today’s young quarterbacks
It’s fairly amazing how self-aware Ryan Leaf has become given that he’s known for being anything but.
HIs experiences over the past 19 years obviously led to plenty of soul searching, though.
Leaf is known as one of the NFL draft’s big busts after being selected second overall by the San Diego Chargers in 1998. It turned out to be one of the most regrettable picks in NFL history and Leaf’s pro career went south fast. His life off the field did too. Leaf recently served two years in prison after being arrested twice in one weekend for breaking into homes in Montana and stealing prescription drugs.
Today, Leaf seems to have his life back on track after being released from prison and is even mentoring younger players. In a first-person piece for Sports Illustrated on Monday, he wrote that he was “excited” to be asked by the NFL to work with this year’s quarterback draft class at the scouting combine in February and share his tale of what went wrong.
Leaf is no longer afraid to point out his mistakes and hopes his bad decisions will prevent today’s crop of quarterbacks from walking down the wrong road.
“I’ve thought about what I would say to myself if I could go back to that spring,” Leaf wrote. “First off, I would say, “Ryan, you don’t know [expletive]. Just because you’re a good college football player does not mean that success will translate to the NFL. More importantly, just because you’re a good football player, doesn’t mean you’re a good person.”
Leaf wrote about his many missteps. That included his attitude before the draft (he even asked his agent at one point how to get the Steelers to draft him, because that was his favorite team growing up), to not getting to work right away after he was drafted. He said he immediately contacted a real estate agent and got on a flight to Las Vegas, while first pick Peyton Manning was “holing himself up in the Colts’ facility for days when he arrived.” Then Leaf alienated teammates by not participating in drills he knew he couldn’t succeed at, and by not getting along with them in general.
“It came off like I thought I was better than them because I made more money and I was a quarterback,” Leaf wrote. “I probably did think that.”
In the piece, Leaf writes about how he was responsible for his career not working out. He was full of hubris from being the second pick of the draft, and quickly found out that his draft status didn’t ensure NFL success.
As another draft approaches, Leaf is a textbook cautionary tale for all the latest NFL rookies.
It’s just surprising that Leaf himself is now the one telling that tale.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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