Canzano: Ryan Leaf -- unfiltered -- is a gift
The 'gram' doesn't capture the grit, does it?
Ryan Leaf is one of my favorite follows on social media. He might also be the most authentic one out there. The former NFL quarterback struck again this week when he posted about one of the worst days of his professional career.
It came at Arrowhead Stadium during the 1998 season. Leaf, the No. 2 pick in the draft, was three games into his rookie season and a couple of days removed from a stay in the hospital. It was a rainy, windy day. He completed his first pass of the game. Then, Leaf threw 14 straight incompletions, committing five turnovers in the first seven possessions.
The Chiefs won 23-7.
The following day in the locker room, Leaf was approached by Jay Posner of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Posner had written a story about an unflattering confrontation Leaf had with a TV cameraman after the embarrassing loss. Visiting NFL locker rooms of that era had tight, uncomfortable quarters. In the post-game fray, a cameraman’s equipment accidentally struck the quarterback in the side of his head. Leaf didn’t handle it well.
He did no better with the beat reporter the next day. Leaf started yelling, towering over Posner. Teammate Junior Seau rushed over, grabbed Leaf by the arm, and removed him from the scene. Seau threw a fully clothed Leaf in the showers, turned the cold water on, and told him: “Baby boy, we’ll talk about this later.”
Years later, after football, Leaf spiraled into drug addiction. He was indicted, arrested, and ordered to rehabilitation by the courts. He got divorced, attempted suicide, and lost a college coaching job because he allegedly asked a player for pain pills. After another series of arrests for burglary, theft, and drug charges, Leaf was sentenced to seven years in custody of the Montana Department of Corrections.
His life was a mess.
If the story had ended there, we’d have all acknowledged that it made perfect sense. Leaf isn’t the only person in sports history to crumble under the suffocating pressure of being a top draft pick. He wasn’t the only athlete to get sacked by opioids. And let’s be real — Leaf also had the misfortune of doing all of it in the late 1990s.
It was an era where sports media coverage and interest in the NFL, in particular, was exploding His failed career trajectory, arrests, images of the ex-QB in a jail jumpsuit, and the “biggest bust ever?” narrative became regular fodder for the shoulder programming shows that filled the dead air during daytime hours on the networks.
Leaf is sober now. He got clean, remarried, and rebuilt his family. He’s working, ironically, as an analyst on the same kind of radio and television shows that used to skewer him regularly. He does lots of public speaking and talks openly about his daily battle with sobriety and the countless mistakes he’s made.
This week, Leaf came across a video clip of that 1998 football game on social media. Leaf could have ignored it. Instead, the former quarterback used the moment to craft a quick Twitter post, drawing attention to his failure to handle the moment maturely. Then, he posted it for the world to absorb.
Wrote Leaf:
Ok, you’ve just spent the whole week in the hospital, you went to Arrowhead for the first time and played in a monsoon. You played the worst game of your life. You’re humiliated and embarrassed. You’re 2-1 as a starting QB.
What do you do…
A) Own it all, say it will never happen again, and work harder than ever before
B) Yell at a beat reporter for doing his job
C) Go out and throw 4 TDs vs the Giants
D) Go out and throw 4 Ints vs the Giants
As a 22-year-old rookie, Leaf was foolish. He picked “B.” He refused to own his errors and took the frustration out on the beat reporter. As a 48-year-old, he circled back to show the world how human he is. Leaf made amends years ago with the reporter he barked at in the locker room. But he’s gone completely candid now in demonstrating how objectively absurd his behavior was, and how a flawed mentality contributed to his failure. We can all learn from that, no?
In April, Leaf posted a series of family photographs on Twitter along with the words:
“12 years ago today I woke up on the floor of a jail cell... with no hope or possible idea what could be! There was no possibility of this life, no love of my life, no career, no future, no family, no recovery. You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending! There is Hope!”
I asked Leaf once in a 1-on-1 interview why being candid and self-deprecating is important to him. He confessed that some of it is for himself and his healing. It’s important to own your mistakes. The rest of it is for anyone who needs to hear it. As I told Leaf this week, he’s providing an important public service by showing buckets of humility, hope, and humanity.
As Leaf likes to say in his talks: “You are never your worst moment, you are the sum of all your parts.”
Social media is a trip. It’s insane and unrealistic. It’s filled with people living their “best” lives, airbrushing their blemishes, posing by borrowed cars, and whitening their teeth, all to show everyone else how wonderful their lives are going.
My wife and I were sitting by the Willamette River in Oregon one evening during the height of the pandemic, enjoying a sunset. We were devouring cheeseburgers we bought from a fast food restaurant while sitting in our car. It wasn’t a glamourous date night. Nothing we’d dare post on social media, right?
Mid-meal, we witnessed a fascinating scene. A new high-end luxury sedan pulled up at the other end of the parking lot. A family friend rushed out, left the door open, and her vehicle running. She was in workout clothes and carrying her phone. We watched her race down the dock at the river, fix her hair, pose for selfies, and snap several photos. Then, she hustled back to her car and sped away while we ducked down in the front seats of our SUV.
It was a strange scene. One that turned into laughter and amusement a few minutes later when we scanned the Instagram page of that same friend and saw that she’d posted the photos for her tens of thousands of followers with the caption: “Out for a sunset jog.”
To be fair, it was sunset and the woman did run about 15 yards.
Also, she’s not alone in misrepresenting her life on social media.
We never said a peep to that friend. We didn’t need to. When I go to post a photo on social media, I’m careful to make sure there isn’t a pile of dirty dishes on the countertop in the background. We’re all guilty of cropping out the ugly and unflattering parts of our lives, folks. And let’s be real, lots of people we all know recently ‘dialed up’ the colors and contrast when snapping photos of the Northern Lights, didn’t they? It’s what people do. Social media is also driving higher rates of depression, discontent, anxiety, and disconnect, particularly in teens.
Ryan Leaf’s willingness to show the world that he has wrinkles, flaws, bags under his eyes, and worries in his life is an antidote. It’s refreshing. Life is a grind. It’s rarely perfect. Every day is an opportunity to win (or lose). Also, each day provides a chance to take ownership. Leaf’s second act is valuable. The gift is that it comes without a filter.
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Thank you for this, John.
You are never your worst moment, nor your best. You are what you do with the sum total of all your moments. More than that, you are how you treat people, because that's what they'll remember about you.
Ryan Leaf learned that lesson- later than most, to be sure, but some folks never learn it at all. I'm glad he found the sweet spot and the peace that goes with it. 🙂
So happy for Ryan Leaf that he has turned his life around. Great article John. Proves that there is always hope.