Image via Complex Original
Managing your professional life next to the life you come home to is hard. The two can differ so drastically—at work, you’re within an environment where you’re expected to bring a forward-thinking attitude while turning in strong performances. At home, what you are also depends on your environment, but with specific caveats and situations that can bleed over into disrupting the happy face you put on at the office.
For NFL players, their office is the field, and the field comes with the same set of rules: Show up, work hard, work even harder if you want to be a champion, and keep your personal life to yourself. Although they’re paid handsomely, that doesn’t mean that they’re not human too—athletes aren’t immune from facing life’s toughest challenges at any stage of their career. What happens off the field can stunt your progress on it.
Whether they faced trying circumstances during their NFL or Pop Warner days, certain NFL players have found an extra gear to persevere. Legendary Packers quarterback Brett Favre’s father died the day before he was supposed to play on Monday Night Football. Former Patriots linebacker Teddy Bruschi rehabbed after a stroke to win Comeback Player of the Year. Quarterback Drew Brees signed with the Saints right after Hurricane Katrina brought New Orleans to its knees. Favre, Bruschi, and Brees each faced totally different battles, but were all able to emerge from the fray as stars. These are 10 NFL Players Who Overcame Adversity off the Field and Shined on it.
Dez Bryant
Here’s one NFL player who’s fortunate to be in the position that he’s in today. Given the set of circumstances he was dealt growing up, it’s a small miracle that Dez Bryant is a 26-year-old millionaire. Born in 1988 in East Texas to a 14-year-old single mother, Bryant’s life was quickly thrown into disarray when his mother served 18 months in prison for dealing crack. With no father around, Bryant spent his teenage years in eight different foster homes until he landed a football scholarship at Oklahoma State. If Bryant’s football story stopped there—if he got hurt in college and just ended up as a regular student—Bryant’s journey from a crack-inflicted home at the height of the urban crack epidemic to a college scholarship and an opportunity to join the NFL would be remarkable.
Bryant hasn’t slowed down on the field, though. Deion Sanders began mentoring Bryant while at Oklahoma State, and Bryant was the subject of an NCAA investigation regarding the pair’s relationship. All of this hurt his draft stock—one ex-scout called Bryant’s background “the worst” that he had ever seen.
He slid in the draft but rewarded the Cowboys for taking a chance on him with an elite pair of hands that were seemingly put on this planet to catch bombs from Tony Romo. The 2013 Pro Bowl player is currently on pace to put up three straight 1,000 yard, 10 touchdown seasons, making his path from a corner of deep East Texas to Dallas a truly special one.
Michael Oher
“My life is like a movie” is one of the most overused, laziest, and overall awful bars that a rapper can spit—it’s disingenuous. Unless you’re Cam’ron and you get casted to basically play yourself in a Hollywood flick, you don’t have the right to say that.
The exception is Michael Oher, of course. The subject of the best-selling book The Blindside and the Academy Award-winning Sandra Bullock film by the same name, Oher’s escape from the crack-infected Memphis ghetto to the home of a wealthy local family was literally made into a movie. Oher’s now the author of I Beat The Odds, a Super Bowl champion, and the signee of a $20 million NFL deal to play offensive tackle for his hometown Tennessee Titans.
Knowshon Moreno
For the first 12 years of Knowshon Moreno’s life, he didn’t have a home. Born in the Bronx to two teenage parents, Moreno’s father took care of him. He was raised in homeless shelters throughout the city, never staying in one place or going to one school for too long.
Right before high school, though, Moreno was given an out. His maternal grandmother sued for custody and brought him to Belford, New Jersey. With a dependable parent, a roof over his head, and the loving guidance of his grandmother, Moreno began his work on the football field.
Formerly a star running back at the University of Georgia, Moreno has shown flashes of the same talent in the NFL but hasn’t been able to stay healthy. He has only played 63 of the possible 96 regular season NFL games and had only one complete season. Moreno, however, has always been a fierce competitor and still has potential as a 27-year-old. Given what he’s been through before, another ACL injury won’t deter his comeback.
Drew Brees
The Saints’ 2005-2006 season was forgettable in New Orleans. Right before the start of the season, Hurricane Katrina blew through the city and ripped the shell off of the iconic Superdome. The Saints spent that entire season on the road, and they went 3-13. In the offseason, Pro Bowl quarterback Drew Brees hit free agency, but he was considered to be damaged goods due to a serious shoulder injury that threatened to end his career. The Saints were the only team to show confidence in Brees.
So a broken quarterback and a team with a broken stadium came together in March 2006. Since then, the Saints have become perennial contenders thanks to Drew Brees’ arm and head coach Sean Payton’s offense. In 2010, the pair brought the Saints their first Super Bowl title, but Brees’ charity work in the community has arguably overshadowed even that accomplishment. Upon signing with the Saints in 2006, the Brees Dream Foundation went to work building and rebuilding athletic facilities, parks, schools, and fields. His name, face, and omnipresent efforts became an instant hit in the city.
Brees voluntarily went to New Orleans with a bum shoulder to play for a bad team in a broken city (a $60 million contract certainly helped). Through heart and talent, he was able to piece together his career, his team, and the city of New Orleans to eventually become a champion.
Teddy Bruschi
Big tough Pro Bowl NFL linebackers aren’t supposed to suddenly go limp. They’re shining examples of peak human physical condition caring auras of invincibility. But sometimes that expertly shaped body can turn against you. Just days after playing the 2005 Pro Bowl, Bruschi suffered a mild stroke in Boston. Testing revealed a small hole in Bruschi’s heart, and the stroke had left him partially paralyzed. After four months of rehab, he announced that he would sit out the following NFL season.
That October, Bruschi surprised everyone by returning to practice after receiving a medical clearance. He was able to play in the season’s remaining nine games, wrapping up 62 tackles and two sacks. In 2005 he experience extreme ups and downs, but for his courage and drive, he was anointed the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year.
Brett Favre
For Brett Favre, adversity off the field is something that he’s fought off his entire life. He and his girlfriend Deanna became pregnant when Favre was 19 years old and felt pressure not to see the situation through. At that point in his life, he was far from the millionaire franchise quarterback—Favre was a seventh-string quarterback at Southern Mississippi who partied hard. While Favre was breaking into college football, Deanna became a single mom. Before the start of Favre’s senior year as Southern Mississippi’s starting quarterback, he suffered a serious car accident and had 30 inches of his intestines removed. Six weeks later, he beat Alabama.
Even at the highest points of his NFL career—his marriage to Deanna, his three straight MVP awards, and his lone Super Bowl championship in 1997—Favre was struggling with alcoholism and an addiction to painkillers. Favre entered rehab twice during the late ‘90s, but it wasn’t until Deanna threatened divorce that he sobered up for good.
After Favre straightened out his personal life, tragedy within his family struck. One day before a 2003 Monday Night Football matchup against the Oakland Raiders, his 58-year-old father died suddenly. Favre played the next night and threw for four touchdowns and 399 yards while completing 73.3 percent of his passes in a 41-7 blowout win.
The next year, Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer (aggressive treatment throughout the year brought a full recovery for her), and in 2005, the Favre family lost its home to Hurricane Sandy. Yet, through all of these life-changing setbacks and recoveries, Favre continued on as the NFL’s Ironman, ending his career as the league’s all-time leader in wins by a quarterback, consecutive starts, touchdowns, passing yards, and quite fittingly, sacks.
Peyton Manning
Life hasn’t always been so sweet for Peyton. Archie’s older boy has been a golden quarterback for basically his entire life, but in May 2011 he had neck surgery, which endangered his NFL career. After the multiple procedures, Manning flat-out couldn’t throw a football. His range of motion had decreased, leaving him unable to complete a throwing motion. How is that even possible for Peyton Manning?
Doctors performed a spinal fusion procedure in response, but couldn’t guarantee that, at his age, his body would heal properly (former Packers tight end Jermichael Finley had the surgery done in 2013 at 26 years of age and has yet to return to full strength). Peyton Manning’s career was in jeopardy. Or so we thought.
Since sitting out the 2013 season to rehab, Manning has come back better than ever. He’s won an MVP award, set the single-season touchdown record, broke the career passing touchdowns record, and has been to a Super Bowl since his surgery.
Jimmy Graham
For about the first 13 years of Jimmy Graham’s life, there wasn’t a single family member who loved him. His father was never a factor. His mother often left him with friends and other family members, including an ex-step father at one point. While living with him, he found out that Graham’s mother was receiving $98 a month in child support from Graham’s father. He demanded the money from her because Graham was living under his roof. When she didn’t turn it over, the ex-step father turned him over to social services. He was abandoned because of $98.
His mother would come in and out of custody for Graham. She’d abandon him with social services, ignore his calls, then return months later and take him back. This happened repeatedly, and by high school, a local church volunteer became Graham’s adoptive mother. He finally found someone to love him like a son.
Now, at age 27, Graham’s an All-Pro NFL tight end with a contract for $21 million in guaranteed money—far from the boy who wasn’t worth $98 to his mother.
Demaryius Thomas
As a child, Thomas always saw his mother and grandmother in the kitchen. They’d pore over the stove, mixing pots and banging pans, but it wasn’t a square meal for Thomas that they’d cook up—it was crack. Thomas grew up in a crack house until police raided his home when he was a sixth grader. His mother and grandmother were taken away that day in 1997, and Thomas has only been able to see them six times since.
He bounced between different family members in middle school, but for his last three years in high school, his uncle’s family picked him up. Thomas, who lived a life surrounded by drugs and crime, managed to avoid that lifestyle but still lacked discipline. His uncle changed that. They’d make him help out on the family farm and go to Sunday school.
With a caring family to count on during his most formative years, Thomas has been able to find a path out of his former life in the streets. Now he's Peyton Manning’s favorite target on the high-powered Broncos offense.
Devon Still
For an NFL season that’s been marred by controversy, Devon Still’s story is so, so necessary. It’s proof that too many people in this country care about the NFL to see the league’s negative press dominate the conversation. Still, a third-year defensive tackle from Penn State, was cut from the Bengals after a poor showing at training camp. Earlier this summer, his 4-year-old daughter was diagnosed with pediatric cancer. With treatment undergoing for Leah, Still simply wasn’t focusing on football.
The Bengals were made aware of Still’s situation— he estimated that medical costs for Leah would run up to $1 million—and acted in his best interest. They signed Still to the practice squad—partly so his daughter could have health insurance coverage, but also because Still isn’t a total scrub. He was a second round pick in 2012, and cutting a guy who had a bad month at the office because he was worried sick about his cancer-stricken daughter just doesn’t feel right. Since Leah’s had a tumor removed as part of her recovery, Still has played in seven games, recording 14 tackles.
Going a step further, the Bengals began selling Still’s jersey and donating the proceeds to pediatric cancer charities. The promotion raised more than $1 million, and Leah made enough progress in her recovery to watch her dad play for the first time on November 9.
The promotion ended on October 20, but you can still donate to help the Bengals “sack pediatric cancer” here.