Former #2 overall pick Ryan Leaf can relate to new Steelers quarterback Dwayne Haskins.
Leaf was picked right after Peyton Manning in 1998 but didn’t live up the expectations.
His NFL career was marred from the start with behavioral issues and later legal issues after being a finalist for the Heisman Trophy after his Junior year at Washington State.
Now at 44, Leaf is a college football and NFL analyst, and is a Program Ambassador for Transcend Recovery Community that helps those that can't afford treatment for addiction.
Leaf tells the PM Team he also got a second chance like Haskins did but also wasted it.
After getting back his starting quarterback job, Haskins was seen at a strip club, was fined and then released by the Washington Football Team before being signed to a Reserve/Future contract, one that does not guarantee him a spot on the 53-man roster.
“He just got the starting job back, they went out and had a bad game, he’s caught in a strip club that night, I did the exact same thing right, I got a second chance to be the starter, I didn’t play way, I knew criticism was coming and I just went out and acted out and was impulsive and I think that there’s a similarity in elite athletes where you don’t feel the loyalty or the backing of people that you need and you act out impulsively and you do things you probably normally wouldn’t do but you feel like ‘hey why doesn’t anyone have my back, you’re not going to tell me what to do, I’m the man here’, so you self-sabotage,” said Leaf.
Leaf believes that the Steelers have the best franchise when it comes to a system and that Haskins will get the proper guidance he needs and also likes what Haskins has said so far.
“You surround yourself with people that are going to hold you accountable, not around the people that say it was the Washington Football Team’s fault, it was coach Rivera’s fault, it was everybody’s fault but your own,” said Leaf. “You want people around you who are holding the mirror up to you.”
Leaf says Haskins can still be a good quarterback in the NFL, reminding people that Joe Burrow had to transfer from Ohio State to LSU so he could play.
“I think he can be as any bit as good as anybody in the league if that’s what it’s all about, football, nothing else but football, it’s your 9 to 5 every single day, you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and you put all of your effort and focus into that, I think he can be a very capable quarterback in this league,” said Leaf.
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Leaf adds the “NFL does not suffer fools” and if you can’t get it done in the league, you’re done and raw talent that may have gotten you by in college will not work in the NFL.
Leaf says he spent so much time believing he was a failure because he heard it so much and believed he was a bad person, “not just a bad football player” and that led to mental health and substance abuse issues.
“I found it doesn’t cost me anything at all to be transparent and vulnerable about my past because I know that there’s somebody else that’s going through it,” said Leaf.
Leaf now talks to players at the NFL Combine and reminds them to spend time thinking about other people other than themselves and to not get too caught up in everything being about themselves like he did.
“It’s something I didn’t do, I made it more about me than I did about anybody else.”