Just Because: Ryan Leaf NFL Highlight Video

Ryan Leaf, once a national punchline for his failures on the football field and his struggles with substance abuse, has signed with ESPN as a college football analyst for the upcoming season. The news makes me very happy because addiction is something we care about at Slackie Brown and Leaf has legitimately pulled himself up by his bootstraps in recent years when many had written him off. In addition to his aspirations as a broadcaster, Leaf has also made it a priority to give back to the recovery community. He’s shared his story at length since getting sober and continues to help those currently struggling, service as an ambassador at Transcend Recovery in Los Angeles.

Although his work in the recovery world is more important than what he did on the football field, Leaf could sling the ball all over the field. At the NFL level, he didn’t have too many great games, but one of my first memories of Leaf on the field was when he threw three deep touchdowns passes in one game during the 2000 NFL season. As it turns out, that game was the only time he had a QB Rating over 80.0 in his 21 NFL starts.

You can see all three of those touchdown passes in the video below; they’re the first three plays of the highlight.

Leaf finished the game with 311 passing yards and a 111.8 QB Rating. San Diego wound up losing the game 38-37 to Denver but I remember watching it and it was an exciting shootout.

Congrats, Ryan.