Raiders just picked up Jeff George

[Harry Beanbag]

http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/9624360


http://oklahoma.rivals.com/images/smilies/roll.gif (javascript:updateText('/images/smilies/roll.gif','roll');void('');)

[OUstud]

Wow, when I read this thread title, I thought it was like when people were saying "Damion James to DeVry", but it's true. :confused:

[Harry Beanbag]

Yeah. The Titans don't look so bad now. :D

[trwxxa]

It is nice to see some other teams more f***ed up than the Texans

[OklahomaTuba]

What? Was Staubach not available?

[AllAboutThe'O']

What? Was Staubach not available?
You mean Kenny "The Snake" Stabler, don't you?

[trwxxa]

Does anybody know what Ryan Leaf is doing these days?

[sooner-n-ga]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/football/20leaf.html?ex=1156910400&en=47425d5f0d312eab&ei=5070

Ryan Leaf’s eyes are bloodshot and his hair is matted down at the end of a 17-hour workday.

Leaf, the new quarterbacks coach at West Texas A&M, sets aside his plastic foam cup for tobacco juice and pauses to check the schedule.

It will be another long day, with practice, meetings and plenty of time spent in his cramped office. Leaf estimated that he spends at least 70 hours a week in his new job at this Division II college in Canyon, Tex., 12 miles south of Amarillo — all for no paycheck.

The hardworking volunteer coach is the same Ryan Leaf who was supposed to take the N.F.L. by storm but instead just stormed around. The same player who was taken second in the 1998 draft, behind Peyton Manning, then retired after four seasons and is best remembered for disappointing play, injuries and clashes with coaches, teammates, reporters and fans.

So how exactly did he end up here, at a campus much closer to Amarillo than the Rose Bowl or N.F.L. stardom? And what is he doing teaching young players?

“I think the failure in the N.F.L. has humbled me in the fact that I don’t think I’m the best,” Leaf said. “I think I have some knowledge that can help.”

Leaf’s unlikely journey to West Texas A&M began in late 2003, when his life after football had hit rock bottom. He was unhappy in his job as a financial consultant, which threw him into such an inactive rut that he gained 50 pounds. He seldom left his house and, even when he did, did not feel comfortable in the city where he blundered most.

“The people in San Diego did not move on,” said Leaf, who was booed and benched regularly while losing 14 of 18 starts with the Chargers. “They would never say anything to my face. It was always behind my back, or little punches in the paper.”

While he was eager for distance from his N.F.L. past, in November 2003 he realized how much he missed college football. He called his former coach at Washington State, Mike Price, and they devised a plan to get him back into the game.

Leaf started by going back to college at Washington State and finishing his degree. Price, now the coach at Texas-El Paso, encouraged Leaf to apply at West Texas A&M and recommended that Coach Don Carthel give him the job.

“We all know, just as Ryan knows, that he messed up when he was younger,” Carthel said. “But in the right environment, Ryan Leaf can use his good qualities and really help somebody achieve some great things. That’s the Ryan Leaf that we’re all looking for.”

The quarterbacks he would coach did not know what to think when he arrived in February.

“I was wondering who found him and where he was and how they got a hold of him and got him here,” the backup quarterback Keith Null said.

Dalton Bell, the starting quarterback, said, “Never in a thousand years would I have thought he’d be my quarterbacks coach.”

Having seen Leaf’s infamous meltdowns on television, he said he thought, “Man, maybe this guy could be a jerk.” But Bell added, “He’s a really good guy.”

And apparently a decent coach, too.

Bell and Null said Leaf immediately improved their fundamental throwing motion and helped with their timing, pocket presence and reading defenses.

West Texas A&M led Division II in passing offense last year by averaging 364 yards and 40 points a game, prompting Baylor to hire away the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. That opened the job filled by Leaf.

Bell said Leaf has plenty of patience and advice. He said Leaf told him, “Any time you’re feeling down and out, you can come to me because I’ve probably been there.”

In 1997 at Washington State, Leaf was often unstoppable, averaging 331 yards a game and leading the Cougars to their first Rose Bowl since 1931. He finished third in Heisman Trophy balloting, then became part of a debate over whether he or Manning should be drafted No. 1.

Time has proved that the Colts made the right choice. The Chargers had an inkling they had made the wrong decision by Leaf’s third game, when he was 1 for 15 for 4 yards with 3 fumbles and 2 interceptions in a loss at Kansas City.

The next day, Leaf unleashed an obscenity-laced tirade toward a reporter who had written about another obscenity-laced incident by Leaf the day before. That videotaped scene is still a staple of sports shows.

By the time San Diego cut him after his third season, Leaf’s woes included a cursing tirade toward General Manager Bobby Beathard, a missed season with a shoulder injury and a confrontation with a heckling fan. He finished his career with Tampa Bay and Dallas, winding up with career totals of 14 touchdowns and 36 interceptions.

“It was the worst five or six years of my life, but I wouldn’t be the person I am now without going through it,” Leaf said. “I don’t feel bad for myself. I don’t pout about it.

“It’s so over. I don’t even think about it at all. Everybody’s got some things that have happened bad in their past. Mine was just very public.”

Some Web sites continue a joyful chronicling of his fall, and he is a regular on “biggest draft bust” lists. He says it does not bother him, although he does not consider himself the biggest bust.

“So if you come in the league and you’re a backup and never start a game for 15 years, do you have a successful career?” he said. “I started. I started in the N.F.L. But if you didn’t play a down, is that successful? I played. I tried.”

Trimmed back to 245 pounds, the 30-year-old Leaf, who is divorced, is now content in his little office with mostly barren white walls and stained burgundy carpet.

He does not seem to mind his banged-up wooden desk or an awkward setup that forces him to plug his laptop into the opposite wall, leaving a black cord hovering over his lap.

“There’s no pay and it’s work, but I like what I’m doing,” he said. “Collegiate football with me was the greatest time in my life, and that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

And if this coaching thing really takes off, could he one day return to the pros?

“I don’t want to coach in the N.F.L.,” he said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near the N.F.L.”

[SoonerLB]

“I don’t want to coach in the N.F.L.,” he said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near the N.F.L.”

Oh my gawd! The thought of all those General Managers in the NFL crying like babies is Sooo.........Sad!!! ;)

[Dio]

Ugh

[KC//CRIMSON]

Damn. Mike Leach is one helluva recruiter.

[r5TPsooner]

George must be pushin 50 years old? The guy had a great arm but a not so great brain.

[AllAboutThe'O']

George must be pushin 50 years old? The guy had a great arm but a not so great brain.
Someone, one of the ESPN talking heads I think, said it best about George shortly after his "infamous" sideline confrontation with coach June Jones while with the Falcons:
"George has a 10 million dollar arm but a 10 cent head."
Just one of the many nuggets I've gleaned over the years and never forgotten.

[Desert Sapper]

Ryan Leaf (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMe0Rz1frdE)

[BudSooner]

That is so sad.