Derek Wolfe Was Temporarily Paralyzed After Spinal Bruise; Played 2 Weeks Later

I know you retired from football and you're still in the prime of your life. Did you retire because of injuries? Did you decide that you had enough? Yeah, it was a combination of all that. So I had double hip surgeries, I tore the labrum off the bone. Oh Jesus Christ. My NFL, the injuries I had while I was in the NFL were just out of control. In 2013, I bruised my spinal cord, I was paralyzed for three hours and then I played two weeks later. Oh my God. And I played for 12, it was miserable. Every time I got touched my arms would go numb. And I'm a defensive lineman so my head's getting hit every play. Holy shit, what was the play that made your spine get bruised? So I was playing on the end of the line on the right side and I was playing a cut block. Somebody tried to cut my legs out so I'm playing a sprawled out to play the cut block and then the fullback hit me on top of the head. And I was awake, it didn't knock me out. It felt like, you know when you're sitting on a shitter for too long, get up. Exactly how my whole body felt, from the nose down. Oh my God, you must have been terrified. I was scared. But then when I could feel them touching my toes, a couple hours after it happened, I was in the hospital, that's when I just started making jokes and stuff because I knew something in my head just said, you're going to be fine. I just had a feeling, I had no choice, I had a young kid, 22 years old, 23 years old. Wow. And then 12 weeks later, I was playing good football still somehow. 12 weeks later, I had a seizure, like a bad seizure. It almost killed me. I had to go, I was in a coma for 36 hours. Sorry. So what, did the seizure come out of a play or did it? No, it was because I wasn't getting fresh blood to my brain because there was a bruise on that spinal right at the base of my brain stem and it never healed. I didn't let it heal. Two weeks isn't going to heal a bruise, you know? Holy shit. It never healed so I wasn't getting fresh blood to my brain so I was running on just like pure adrenaline. How did they clear you to play two weeks later? They told me it was a stinger. Oh God. They said it's just a stinger, you're fine. Well they said, well you know when you have a big warehouse and you flip the lights off, they come right off but when you turn them on, it takes a while for them to come back on. That's what they told me happened. They're comparing you to a warehouse. Yeah. You're like, hey motherfucker, I'm a human. That's when I realized, man, I was like, they don't care about us. No, there's another guy waiting to take your spot, that's what's so crazy. And that's why you have to play. Yeah. Guys play hurt and played banged up. So how much time did you get to train before you went and played two weeks later? How much? I just went straight into practice the next week. Wow. The next week. Yeah. So one week after your parallel, you're in practice. Yeah. So they tried to keep me in the hospital after the game and I was like, when's the plane leaving? And they were like, they're getting ready to go to the plane right now. It's a pre-season game. And I was like, okay, well I'm getting on that plane then. So I had them take me from the hospital to the plane. So the doctors wanted to keep you in the hospital. Yeah, doctors wanted me to stay, but the team doctors were like, you're good, we can go. I promise, team doctors are savages. Oh my God. Well, they did the X-rays and the MRIs right away, you know? Right. So we went straight to the ER. I was on a stretcher, you know, into an ambulance. Had to bring the ambulance on the field. I couldn't move. I was just stuck in the ground. It was like I was melted, you know? It couldn't move at all. All my muscles were just, it was the weirdest feeling, man. But like I said, it started, I was feeling better, but I think I just tricked my brain into thinking like, I was in survival mode. I've been in survival mode since the day I came out of the womb, man. I just, like always surviving, you know, just trying to survive through whatever it is that's going on. It's like I disassociate from it and just make it through. Great skill to have if you want to play professional football, right? Well, I don't know if you saw what Deion Sanders just said about what he's looking for in a quarterback. It's a two parent home. It's a two parent home, a 3.5 GPA, and he wants the complete opposite for a defensive lineman. Really? Yeah, he's like, I want, it's either football or prison pretty much. Type a motherfucker. This is what he wants. But if you think about the position and you think about what you guys have to do, it kind of makes sense. You have to be fucking barbaric. Yeah, it is a fucking war in there. You got two, I mean, the way that the size of these offensive linemen now, I mean, they're fucking 350 pounds and there's two of them and they're trying to move you every fucking play. Oh my God. And you better, if you play pussy, you're going to get fucked. That's what I would say. You got there playing pussy, you're going to get fucked. That's just the way it goes. What is the average lifetime of a career in the NFL? It's two and a half years. Wow. Because at that third year, you get vested. So vested means you get pension and all the benefits that come with that. And most guys don't get there. And most guys don't get there. We talk about it with fighting all the time that a real elite athlete in his prime has like nine years. That's the consensus, is there's like nine years at peak performance and then it's just too much. The wheels fall off, the injuries stack up, the time and training. And then sometimes it's enthusiasm too. Guys lose that fire that made them a savage in the beginning. But football is even worse. It's even shorter time. Well, it's shorter, but your earnings, right? Your earnings, you're on a rookie contract for your first four years. So you get drafted and you're on that rookie contract, you make pretty much slotted out the money. If you're not a top 10 pick in the draft and you're not really making life changing money. I had $7 when I got drafted though. I didn't even have a bank account. And I'm shit. Wow. I was a fucking poor ass kid from Ohio. I went to Cincinnati and I lived with Travis and Jason Kelsey. We all lived in the same house. I don't know if you know who those guys are, but Travis is like best tight end in the history of the NFL now. Jason's going to be the best center of both Hall of Famers. Just played against each other in the Super Bowl. And then our quarterback went up to Canada, won two great cups. So we got four Super Bowls and two great cups in that house. And we were fuck ups. We were fucking idiots. But again, don't you kind of want that from, I want football players to be a little reckless. You have to be. Same with fighters. I don't want a fucking Boy Scout. Exactly. When John Jones kept getting into trouble and people like, you believe what John Jones did? I'm like, John Jones is a wild motherfucker. That's why he's the greatest of all time. You need an element of psycho in there. You have to be fucked up. You have to be fucked up. You do. And it's just the way it goes. You got to be a little fucked up to do it. Is that true with all of them? Is that true? You've been around the greats. You've been around some amazing players. Is that true with all of them? No. No. Most D linemen, interior defensive linemen though, they're fucked up. They are. They're just fucking different. Aaron Donald is a different motherfucker. I mean, he's going to go down as the best defensive tackle to ever do it. But he's fucking wild. Like he's crazy. He tries to kill people out there. He came in with that? Or do you think that also developed over the course of his career? I think it develops over your life. I don't know his life story or anything, but most of us have been through some shit. And you can kind of see it when you meet a guy. He's just fucking different. And then you meet a guy, I have Peyton Manning, a good friend of mine now. We were teammates for four years, won a Super Bowl together. And he still lives in Denver, so we see each other all the time. But Peyton was like complete opposite. He controlled the room. Everything he did was like dialed in. He was so dialed and so professional. Like he came to work like dressed professionally, right? Defense lineman, we're coming in fucking slides and fucking shorts and t-shirts and shit, right? He would show up fucking buttoned up with a suitcase or with a briefcase, you know, and right to the film room. We're going fucking to the weight room. That's where we're going. So it was just a different vibe, man. And then like DeMarcus Ware, fucking ultimate, like such a professional. Everything about him was professional. And the great D linemen that are interior guys, they're usually fucked up. John Randall, you've heard of him? Yes. This guy fucking slept on a fucking dirt floor growing up. You think he's not a little fucked up? Yeah. And then there's the sport itself, which I mean, just the amount of impacts you guys are taking on regular basis. Oh, every day. When it came to stop, to be stopping with the NFL, like when I was like, I'm done, I played eight years in Denver, which was awesome. And then I dislocated my elbow bad going into a contract here in 2019. I was having my best season of my career. Year eight, balling out, about to get another payday. And it was like a dead play. So the whistle didn't get blown. A couple of guys jumped off sides and the whistle gets blown halfway through the play. So half the fucking field is moving at full speed and half the field's not. And it's like fourth and inches play. So I try to make the fucking tackle and I like slow up and I end up slipping and falling. And I'm going to get up and our 330 pound nose tackle goes to Dyke. He's like running straight at me and his fucking shin hits me right in the elbow and it goes to the ground. Oh, dislocated all the way to the fucking ground. I fucking did. I was, I'd never been in so much pain. It hurts so fucking made me want to throw up. I was throwing up in my mouth because I was grabbing at it and trying to put it back in. Oh, because I in 2016 I did that with my right elbow. It came out and I put it right back in and just kept going. I mean, that's the fucking, the shit, your fingers get popped out all the time. You just put them in and go. Like there's no time to fuck around. And I was trying to get it going and I could just feel it grinding on the bone, grinding against each other. And it was like making me fucking ill. Then they took me in, they took me in the locker room and I was fucking pissed because I knew it was going to cost me a bunch of money. That elbow deal was going to cost me. I knew it probably cost me 20 million. Fucking pissed. My own teammate, he didn't mean to. He was nice as well, but it was like I'm a dead fucking play. I was losing my shit. I fucking slammed my helmet. I was like, these motherfuckers, like I was blaming the refs, so blaming everybody. Fucking refs. I'm going to sue the fucking refs. My turn. All right. Here's the other thing. Before games, I was taking microdoses. So I'm microdosed and I might like full. You're taking mushrooms? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Before games. So I'm taking mushrooms. That's the Viking in you. Yeah. I'm fucking taking mushrooms and fucking Adderall. Wow. Oh my God. What a combination. What is that like? Mushrooms and Adderall. Dude, the fucking focus is out of control. And I would just like, before games, I would get myself pissed off. So I just would start thinking about my childhood, like the shit that I went through as a kid. And they would fucking get me into this rage mode. And it was like this crazy controlled rage. So Adderall, mushrooms, and childhood rage. All together in a 280 pound savage. Well, I was like 300 pounds then. Oh my God. Like 20 pounds every time now when I was playing. Oh my God. Just fucking such a meat head. Saying wild crazy shit to quarterbacks. I told a guy I was going to fucking eat his kids. Oh my God. This is crazy. What did he say? He didn't say shit. He never talked. I played against this guy twice a year for eight years and that was in year four that that happened. So four years straight, he never said another word to me. Oh my God. I was like this guy's a fucking sicko. Once I got married and had kids and stuff though, I was like coded on saying shit like that. But that's what you do, man. It's a fucking head game. It's a head game. I'm trying to get in his head. Yeah. 100%. I always try to explain that to people. Well, Conor McGregor's a fucking asshole. Things he says. I'm like, it's part of the game. I mean, it's, yeah, I get it. You don't want to hear those things. I get it. I get it. But that's legal and that works. It works. That's strategy. It's an un-sue art of war.