Ryan Leaf: My NFL Downfall Began at the 1998 NFL Combine | The Rich Eisen Show

all right um story time with ryan let's do it always fun uh combine season right indianapolis kicks off today players coaches general managers everybody speaking to the media to on to executives and then going through the workout process what that looks like and everything back in 1998 i had not decided whether or not i was going to go pro yet after my rose bowl i was a junior and the day after that rose bowl i talked to my family and and decided that that it was the next step for me was to to try to play in the nfl and um and when i declared uh the invites for the combine had already gone out so unfortunately one of those invitees was going to get a a tough phone call hey uh sorry ryan leaf declared for the draft he's he was invited to the combine that quarterback that got the call that day matt hasselbeck oh boston college maddie sorry kid leaf's coming in you're headed out all right so unfortunately for him he didn't get to go i of course was invited and once i showed up i had not done what the rest of these young men are doing now where the immediacy of them making the decision to go pro they get with an agent their agent sets them up with a training facility and a trainer nutritionist all the things probably a pr person to work out uh question and answers and things like that and they go to work what i did the day after the rose bowl is i flew to pittsburgh for the new england patriots pittsburgh steelers playoff game with my agent lee steinberg to watch drew bledsoe and cordell stewart two of his clients play in that playoff game it's probably a fun trip then i went around to some banquet things to the davey o'brien award ended up in san diego for the super bowl between denver and green bay uh appeared on an episode of arliss um you know the banquet circuit is what circuit is what lee steinberg called it right so when early february came around or early march came around i had done nothing i had not worked out i had not mentally prepared i just showed up in indianapolis and thought that you know i'd been told that i was gonna be the first or second pick of the nfl draft what what did i have to do differently yeah you know you just the things you get told and so i showed up and the story i heard a week ago um peyton and i were there and one of uh peyton's close friends who i've become friends with told me a story about how peyton really during that time span leading up to the combine was trying to put on weight was really trying to put on weight for when he got up there and weighed in because i was such a big dude and uh it was something he was worried about and it's so strange to hear that because i didn't think for a moment that peyton was worried about one one iota about me at all like i not at all but that's what he was worried about i showed up i walk onto that stage ryan leaves six foot five and seven eighths 268 pounds whoo linebacker baby and yeah and it wasn't good weight it wasn't good probably 25 pounds over what i should have been right now i'm too right now i'm 235. so right now bro so that's what it should have been instead i was 268 and peyton looked at his buddy and said i can't i can't do that you don't want to do that either peyton by the way you don't want to do that either then after that you go into the drug testing tent right and um and i i couldn't for the life of me uh present a sample i couldn't i couldn't pee i drank like 10 bottles of water where i finally was able to uh give my specimen we go and do the testing side of everything right they measure your hands then they take you into the room where you do the wonderlic test it's it's a i don't know what the purposes of it is a lot of times you know you look back at the movie miracle when um her brooks gave all his players that that silly test um just to kind of see where their mindset is and i think that's what the wonderlic ultimately is peyton and i had similar scores i think his was 28 mine was 27. so it wasn't you know it wasn't deciding factor and anything it wasn't at the bottom or wasn't at the top it was the middle of the road and then the rest of the week plays out now peyton and i we weren't going to do anything the only thing i really came to do was and i also didn't understand this fully about the interviewing process when you talk to coaches and you talk to executives and things like that so when i was going through the medical side of everything the chicago bears asked for a uh x-ray x-ray mri on my thumb i had broken my thumb in high school uh and i had no issues with it the rest of my career yet the chicago bears wanted me to go get a on my thumb so they scheduled the x-ray and medical takes precedence over any any meetings you are good to go to uh was it exactly the same time where i was supposed to meet with jim mora in the indiana indianapolis colts who had the number one overall pick in the draft at that time so i missed it there's been many stories speculation that i missed it on purpose jim morris senior was very upset the next day in his press conference he talked about how i missed the meeting uh the politics of all what the politicking that goes on whether people are putting something out to the press or not years later lee steinberg my agent would write a book and in that book he would state that he had a conversation with me because i was not incredibly interested in going to indianapolis that it would behoove me not that he recommends it that i missed that meeting and that never was the case i know people i know you're selling books you know i i get it we just missed it we missed it we didn't really comment on it bill paulian and jim mora senior were incredibly upset my meeting with bobby beathard and the san diego chargers at the time went really well um i i assumed they couldn't have been happy with the fact that i came in overweight but i immediately reactionary rather than proactively got a trainer down in newport beach and i went to work the day of my pro day april 3rd i showed up at a a fit 241 pounds maybe and ready to go and had what marty schottenheimer at the time uh considered the best workout at the quarterback position he'd seen since troy aikman and um so i really thought that i uh that i was the number one overall draft pick didn't mean that i had to be drafted number one overall i liked the idea of going to san diego of course because of everything that that it meant right it meant money it meant california california meant beach you meant babes right all that and that's what i wanted so we let indianapolis know that i was not interested i don't know how seriously took it one of the last times i hosted the show we had jim irsay the head or the owner of the indianapolis colts on and if you guys recall i asked him that question so jim how close was i to be to i being a indianapolis colt and he said ryan our scouting room was split i will say this somebody i trust implicitly in nfl circles that i go to for advice uh i reached out to the night before the draft and he came to me and said you better draft that leaf kid and if you guys recall correctly i said boy i'm glad you you know you know glad you made the right choice um people forget just how even it was i didn't i mean if you read the tea leaves along the way like the guy that doesn't show up at the biggest job interview of his life prepared that's probably a very telling sign the fact he wasn't a captain of his college football team that's a that's a pretty big sign to attend your birthday parties too or no [Laughter] your little draft day speaking of which i'm looking at rich's uh sag uh after uh aftra um royalties here a lot of uh draft days a lot of draft day stuff um i don't get paid for that and i get humiliated in it so how does that work right do you think jennifer gardner even knows who the hell i am when she read the script she's like i can't say this about ryan he's such a good guy no let's trash his ass let's go you are words on on a paper yup yup um no i i people came to my birthday party in fact back my first birthday in san diego we threw a little get together uh at a place called pasquale's uh in la jolla i believe the bar tab was fifteen thousand dollars um it was an event i mean old ryan leaf sounds real fun welcome to the party pal i mean i don't look back on any of that stuff and go ah i wish i didn't do that i wish they didn't have that kind of fun like the vegas trips i mean they i know what they ultimately became right but at the moment at the moment in the moment in the moment it was a hell of a lot of fun it wasn't contributing to me being a better football player in any way shape or form i tell people all the time when i speak like money changes you people know it won't change me i grew up poor i grew up in a very frugal family that that budgeted and everything like money can change you right if what it does is if you have character defects that exist already they are exacerbated with money that's what money does um it can be so helpful but if you are not ready to have it and do the right things with it and be the right person in it you you're not going to have it for long you're just going to blow right through and that's exactly what i did because i just thought success was money power and prestige and that's that's where that's where it was and that's where i was going and it all started with the the preparation for this combine right i just i was ill-prepared for everything that came after playing in that rose bowl there isn't a moment where i look at and i go oh i did that right and i look back on it now and when i talk to a lot of these young quarterbacks when they're leaving college to head to the nfl i tell them you are a ceo of a fortune 500 company that's who you are now like your brand is a fortune 500 company so you have to act as such and it's not about the first country contract and with the rookie salary cap it certainly has become that right it's not about that first contract it's all about that second contract the extension and so to get to that what do you have to invest in you you entirely like you don't buy a big mansion i bought a house or rented a house on the bluffs of la jolla overlooking the ocean you don't want to leave that house right you want to you want to live in a house that you want to leave every day to go to work so you get a place close to the facility probably have to be gated because you are the franchise quarterback now but it could be a little two-bedroom townhouse you can move your chef or nutritionist in there with you and then it's all about football right you spend all your time at the facility uh you invest everything you can into your body and making sure you are healthy through the process what we've seen in the latter stages of tom brady's career i don't know if you guys watched man in the arena i'm sure you did brockman have you watched that yet uh not all of it but it's it's amazing it's amazing yeah it's so good it's amazing to hear the the man speak about his first season when drew bledsoe got hurt and playing in that aoc championship and saying regardless of whether or not i got hurt in that game the moment was too big for me i couldn't believe when i heard that you never hear that from the greatest cevalta like like always talking about i was i didn't shrink from the opera like he's like that moment was too big for me and the fact that we had drew bledsoe right there riding shotgun to take us to a championship is is so special well this this this uh streaming uh on espn plus man in the arena he talks about all his time and everything like that and what he did later in his career around the nutrition uh the wellness the body health all that stuff that's what you invest in imagine if that's the case i hire a chef i i hire a pr person that just follows me around if i don't the chargers do right just all these things because you invest so much money into it and you become this thing but you are you don't see it whether we didn't understand it then or or or fully and we just lived with the idea of a bust happening every draft you know you just like you know it's a toss of the coin a roll of the dice whatever way it looks um the due diligence that is done now is much different and i feel like guys are much more prepared and they understand when they go into this league to be this way and understand that and those that don't don't right i mean we've seen dwayne haskins what that looked like you still wonder how the mistakes are still made but money changes people bottom line is where we start money changed me i didn't think it would it changed me it made me think i was more important also that i'd reach my goal and people forget at the nfl combine what you're trying to do is get to the next stage the next stage of your profession of your playing career at football and so the next three days the next four days are all about that you're gonna hear a lot of cliches which is what you should hear right now i'd like to hear some vulnerability and transparency but i understand fully that if you can't answer a question truthfully and transparently don't answer it right there's no point in that that's what this is for and the ability and understanding that what the media does for you during a pres uh opportunity like this it builds your brand for free this is free market you don't understand how much money it costs to market we just watch the super bowl there's new revenue sharing uh going to happen with the money around the tv deals you have to fully understand what this opportunity is and i certainly didn't make the most of it it's a funny story now at 45 hosting the tv show because you have content but at the time it didn't uh it didn't work in my benefit i would still go on and be the second overall pick because i was just simply that talented but at the nfl level everybody's talented everybody who gets to that point is talented it's what you do with that talent what you have between the years and what you do from sunday to sunday hey you watched all the way to the end thanks for that watch more right here

Channel: The Rich Eisen Show

Views: 955,451

Keywords: Rich Eisen, Rich Eisen Show, sports, NFL, football, college football, CFP, NBA, basketball, MLB, baseball, pop culture, NBC Sports, Peacock, NBC, streaming, NFL Network, Chris Brockman, TJ Jefferson, Del Tufo, Super Bowl, Ryan Leaf, NFL Combine, NFL Draft, Peyton Manning, Colts, Chargers, Leigh Steinberg

Id: 2y5g9UfCVnI

Length: 16min 9sec (969 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 02 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/sidewalkcrusher_1]

Sounds like it started before the combine.

[u/AngsterMusic]

I listen to Rich Eisen basically every day. When Ryan came on to host the show, I was like, "Na fuck that guy" but I forgot to delete it from my que with all the pods I listen to. At my job (where I listen to podcasts while I work) it's hard to get my phone out and mess around with stuff, so I just went ahead and listened. I'm really glad I did. It sounds like he genuinely feels terrible about who he was and the way he treated people. He turned out to be a true redemption story.

My only point of contention is that I wish everyone in America would get as many chances as this dude got. There's plenty of people in jail for 25 years for weed or whatever that will never get these extended opportunities. I'm still glad Leaf did, but I just wish it happened for more people.

[u/Julianwds14]

This guy was arrested for domestic violence in 2020. I am skeptical how much he has changed.

[u/morosco]

This sub loved him even before he beat his girlfriend the most recent time, blamed her for his conviction because she called the police, and got off easy again.

[u/RYAN_702_DUNKEL]

Not going to lie, I really like when ryan leaf hosts the rich eisen show.

[u/OBuckets]

Ryan leaf is a douche

[u/HardKnockRiffe]

That was an incredibly introspective story from Leaf. It takes a lot of self-reflection and accountability to look back at a situation like that - where you are one of the most talented guys in the draft, who eventually failed - and not look to point fingers. It would have been easy for him to say his agent didn't work in his best interest to make sure he was ready for the combine. It would have been easy to question why the Chargers didn't intervene more. Instead, he looks at himself at that age and says, "I had character defects which became untenable once I got paid." Thanks for the vid, OP.

[u/filladellfea]

fuck this guy?

[u/Seeders]

This guy is still not over himself. We know your story ryan, but you aren't the center of the universe.