Taken from JRE #1950 w/Derek Wolfe:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5WILdrvfhax0oZV6ebCYX0?si=ced54e8ee4a64f29

I know you retired from football and you're still in the prime of your life.

I'd been, my NFL, like the injuries I had while I was in the NFL were just out of control, man.

I was paralyzed for 3 hours, and then I played 2 weeks later.

Every time I got touched, my arms would go numb.

And I'm a defensive lineman, so my head's getting hit every play.

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 it like sprawled out to play the cut block and then the fullback hit me on top of the head.

It just like, it felt like, you know when you're sitting on a shitter for too long?

Exactly how my whole body felt from the nose down.

I was scared, but then as soon, when I started, when I could feel them like touching my toes, like a couple hours after it happened, I was in the hospital, that's when I just started making jokes and stuff, because I knew I was, something in my head just said, you're gonna be fine.

Like I just had a feeling, I had no choice, I was a young kid, 22 years old, 23 years old.

And then 12 weeks later, I was playing good football still somehow.

12 weeks later, I had a seizure, like a bad seizure.

So what, did the seizure come out of a play or did it?

No, it's 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.

2 weeks isn't gonna heal a bruise, you know?

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 2 weeks later?

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 me to come back on that's what they told me happened

No, there's another guy waiting to take your spot.

That's why guys play hurt and play banged up.

So how much time did you get to train before you went and played 2 weeks later?

I just went straight into practice the next week.

So 1 week after you're paralyzed, you're in practice.

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.

And I was like, okay, Well, I'm getting on that plane then So I had him take me from the hospital to the plane So the doctors wanted to keep

Yeah doctors wanted me to stay but the team doctors were like you're good We can go

Well, they did the x-rays and the MRIs right away, you know?

I was on a stretcher, you know, into an ambulance.

They had to bring the ambulance on the field.

It was like I was melted, and you know, I 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 I just make it through.

Great skill to have if you wanna 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.

He wants a 2 parent home, what's a 2 parent home, a 3.5 GPA, and he wants the complete opposite for a defensive lineman.

Yeah, he's like, I want, it's either football or prison pretty much.

But if you think about the position, and you think about what you guys have to do, it kind of makes sense.

The size of these offensive linemen now, I mean, they're fucking 350 pounds, and there's 2 of them, and they're trying to move you every fucking play.

And you better, if you play pussy, you're gonna get fucked, that's what I would say.

You go out there playing pussy, you're gonna get fucked, that's just the way it goes.

What is the average lifetime of a career like in the NFL?

2 and a half years 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.

You know, we talk about it with fighting all the time, that a real elite athlete in his prime has, like, 9 years.

You got, like, that's the consensus, is there's, like, 9 years at peak performance, and then it's just too much.

The wheels fall off, the injuries stack up, you know, the time and train, and then sometimes it's enthusiasm too, guys lose that fire that made them a savage in the beginning, but football's even worse.

Well, it's shorter, but your earnings, right?

Your your earnings you don't get to that.

You're on a rookie contract for your first 4 years So you get drafted and you're on that rookie contract you make Pretty much slotted out the money, you know If you're not a top 10 pick in the in the draft and you're not really making life-changing money, you know I had 7 dollars when I got drafted though.

I was just a fucking poor-ass kid from Ohio.

I went to Cincinnati, and I lived with Travis and Jason Kelsey.

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 gonna be the best center, both Hall of Famers.

Just played against each other in the Super Bowl, and then our quarterback went up to Canada and won 2 grade cups.

So we got 4 Super Bowls and 2 grade cups in that house.

But again, don't you kind of want that from I want football players to be a little reckless you have to be yeah They say with fire.

Exactly when 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 do this just the way it goes You got to be a little fucked up to do it.

Is that true like you've been around the greats you've been around some amazing players like is that true with all of them?

Most D linemen, interior defensive linemen, though, they're fucked up.

Like, Aaron Donald is a different motherfucker.

He was, I mean, he's going to go down as the best defensive tackle to ever do it.

Or do you think that also developed over the course of his career

I think it develops over your life, right?

I don't know his life story or anything, but most of us have been through some shit, right?

No, and it's just you can kind of see it when you meet a guy He's just fucking different right?

Yeah, and I when you meet then you meet guy I have like Peyton Manning good friend of mine now, you know, we were teammates for 4 years 1 and won a Super Bowl together And he still lives in Denver.

So we see each other all the time but like Peyton was like complete opposite like he'd fucking he like controlled the room everything he did was like dialed in it was so dialed and so professional like he came to work like dress professionally right defense lineman we're coming in fucking slides and fucking shorts and t-shirts and shit, right?

He'd show up fucking buttoned up with a suitcase or with a briefcase, you know, and right to the film room.

And then like DeMarcus Ware, fucking ultimate, like, such a professional.

Everything about him was professional, but the great D lineman that are interior guys They're usually fucked up John Randall.

Yes, this guy fucking slept on a fucking dirt floor growing up.

Do 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

Oh regular every day when it came to to stop to be stopping with the NFL like when I was like, I'm done.

I played 8 years in Denver, which was awesome But then I dislocated my elbow bad going into a contract here in 2019.

I was having my best season in my career year 8 balling out about to get another payday.

So the whistle didn't get blown, couple 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 a fourth of an inch's 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 like 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, dude, I never been in so much pain.

It hurt so fucking, it made me wanna throw up.

Because I was grabbing at it and trying to put it back in.

Because in 2016 I did that with my right elbow.

I mean, that's the fucking, the shit, your fingers get popped out all the time.

And I was trying to get it to go in, and I could just feel it grinding on the bone, grinding against each other, and it was like making me fucking ill.

And then they took me in, they took me in the locker room And I was fucking pissed cuz I knew it was gonna cost me a bunch of money That elbow deal was gonna cost me if I knew it probably cost me 20 million draw Fucking pissed my own teammate.

He didn't mean to you know it's not yeah, But it was like on a dead fucking play.

I fucking slammed my helmet I was like these motherfuckers like I was blaming the refs blaming everybody Fucking refs.

I'm gonna sue the fucking refs My turn all right, you know, yeah think and here's the other thing before games I was taking micro doses so I'm micro dosed and I might like full

Yes Yeah, yeah before games, so I'm taking mushrooms

yeah, I'm fucking taking mushrooms and fucking Adderall Wow Before

I play Yeah, what is that like mushrooms in Adderall

dude the fucking focus is out of control.

And I would just like, before games I would like, I would like 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 in this rage mode now it was like this crazy controlled rage.

So Adderall, mushrooms and childhood rage.

I was like 20 pounds heavier than I am now when I was playing oh my god just fucking such a meathead saying wild crazy shit to quarterbacks I told a guy I was gonna fucking eat his kids crazy he did he didn't say shit he never talked I played against this guy twice a year for 8 years and that was in year 4 that that happened.

So 4 years straight he never said another word to me.

Once I got married and had kids and stuff though, I was like, colded on saying shit like that.

I always try to explain that to people, people are like, Connor McGregor's a fucking asshole, the 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's strategy, it's unsuited to the art of war.


Speaker 0: The Joe Rogan Experience. 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?

Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a combination of all that. So I had double hip surgeries. I tore the labrums off the bone.

Speaker 0: Oh, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: I'd been, my NFL, like the injuries I had while I was in the NFL were just out of control, man. 2013, I bruised my spinal cord. I was paralyzed for 3 hours, and then I played 2 weeks later. Oh my God. And I played for 12.

How do you, how? 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.

Speaker 0: Holy shit. What was the play that made your spine get bruised?

Speaker 1: 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 it like sprawled out to play the cut block and then the fullback hit me on top of the head. Oh. And it did, I was awake. It didn't knock me out.

It just like, it felt like, you know when you're sitting on a shitter for too long? Get up. Yes. Exactly how my whole body felt from the nose down.

Speaker 0: Oh my God, you must have been terrified.

Speaker 1: I was scared, but then as soon, when I started, when I could feel them like touching my toes, like a couple hours after it happened, I was in the hospital, that's when I just started making jokes and stuff, because I knew I was, something in my head just said, you're gonna be fine. Like I just had a feeling, I had no choice, I was a young kid, 22 years old, 23 years old. And then 12 weeks later, I was playing good football still somehow. 12 weeks later, I had a seizure, like a bad seizure. Almost killed me.

I was in a coma for 36 hours.

Speaker 0: So what, did the seizure come out of a play or did it?

Speaker 1: No, it's 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. 2 weeks isn't gonna 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.

Speaker 0: How did they clear you to play 2 weeks later?

Speaker 1: They told me it was a stinger. Oh, God. 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 me to come back on that's what they told me happened

Speaker 0: They're comparing you to a warehouse. Yeah, you know, hey motherfucker. I'm a human. That's when I realized man

Speaker 1: I was like, they don't care about us.

Speaker 0: No, there's another guy waiting to take your spot. That's what's so crazy.

Speaker 1: And that's why you have to play. Yeah. That's why guys play hurt and play banged up.

Speaker 0: So how much time did you get to train before you went and played 2 weeks later? Like how much?

Speaker 1: I just went straight into practice the next week. Wow. The next week.

Speaker 0: Yeah. So 1 week after you're paralyzed, you're in practice.

Speaker 1: 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 preseason game. And I was like, okay, Well, I'm getting on that plane then So I had him take me from the hospital to the plane So the doctors wanted to keep

Speaker 0: you in the hospital.

Speaker 1: Yeah doctors wanted me to stay but the team doctors were like you're good We can go

Speaker 0: Doctors and savages. Oh my God.

Speaker 1: Well, they did the x-rays and the MRIs right away, you know? Right. So, like, we went straight to the ER. I was on a stretcher, you know, into an ambulance. They 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, and you know, I 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 I just make it through.

Speaker 0: Great skill to have if you wanna play professional football, right?

Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if you saw what Deion Sanders just said about what he's looking for in a quarterback. He wants a 2 parent home, what's a 2 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 of motherfucker is what he wants.

Speaker 0: 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.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a fucking war in there. You got 2... I mean, the way that... The size of these offensive linemen now, I mean, they're fucking 350 pounds, and there's 2 of them, and they're trying to move you every fucking play.

Speaker 0: Oh my god.

Speaker 1: And you better, if you play pussy, you're gonna get fucked, that's what I would say. You go out there playing pussy, you're gonna get fucked, that's just the way it goes.

Speaker 0: What is the average lifetime of a career like in the NFL?

Speaker 1: 2 and a half years because at that third year you get vested so vested means you get pension and all the benefits that come

Speaker 0: with that and most guys don't get there And most guys don't get there.

Speaker 1: And most guys don't get there.

Speaker 0: You know, we talk about it with fighting all the time, that a real elite athlete in his prime has, like, 9 years. You got, like, that's the consensus, is there's, like, 9 years at peak performance, and then it's just too much. The wheels fall off, the injuries stack up, you know, the time and train, and then sometimes it's enthusiasm too, guys lose that fire that made them a savage in the beginning, but football's even worse. I mean, it's even shorter time.

Speaker 1: Well, it's shorter, but your earnings, right? Your your earnings you don't get to that. You're on a rookie contract for your first 4 years So you get drafted and you're on that rookie contract you make Pretty much slotted out the money, you know If you're not a top 10 pick in the in the draft and you're not really making life-changing money, you know I had 7 dollars when I got drafted though. I didn't even have a bank account. I didn't have shit.

I was just 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 gonna be the best center, both Hall of Famers.

Just played against each other in the Super Bowl, and then our quarterback went up to Canada and won 2 grade cups. So we got 4 Super Bowls and 2 grade cups in that house. And we were fuck-ups. We were fucking idiots.

Speaker 0: But again, don't you kind of want that from I want football players to be a little reckless you have to be yeah They say with fire.

Speaker 1: I don't want a fucking Boy Scout

Speaker 0: Exactly when 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, you have

Speaker 1: to be fucked up.

Speaker 0: You have to be fucked up.

Speaker 1: You do this just the way it goes You got to be a little fucked up to do it.

Speaker 0: It's is that true with all of them? Is that true like you've been around the greats you've been around some amazing players like is that true with all of them?

Speaker 1: No. No. Most D linemen, interior defensive linemen, though, they're fucked up. They are. They're just fucking different.

Like, Aaron Donald is a different motherfucker. He was, 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.

Speaker 0: Do you think-

Speaker 1: He tries to kill people out there.

Speaker 0: He came in with that? Or do you think that also developed over the course of his career

Speaker 1: I think it develops over your life, right? I don't know his life story or anything, but most of us have been through some shit, right? No, and it's just you can kind of see it when you meet a guy He's just fucking different right? Yeah, and I when you meet then you meet guy I have like Peyton Manning good friend of mine now, you know, we were teammates for 4 years 1 and won a Super Bowl together And he still lives in Denver. So we see each other all the time but like Peyton was like complete opposite like he'd fucking he like controlled the room everything he did was like dialed in it was so dialed and so professional like he came to work like dress professionally right defense lineman we're coming in fucking slides and fucking shorts and t-shirts and shit, right?

He'd 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, but the great D lineman 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. Do you think he's not a little fucked up?

Speaker 0: Yeah, and then there's the sport itself Which I mean just the amount of impacts you guys are taking

Speaker 1: Oh regular every day when it came to to stop to be stopping with the NFL like when I was like, I'm done. I played 8 years in Denver, which was awesome But then I dislocated my elbow bad going into a contract here in 2019. I was having my best season in my career year 8 balling out about to get another payday. And it was like a dead play. So the whistle didn't get blown, couple 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 a fourth of an inch's 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 like 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, dude, I never been in so much pain. It hurt so fucking, it made me wanna throw up. I was throwing up in my mouth.

Because I was grabbing at it and trying to put it back in. Because in 2016 I did that with my right elbow. It came out and I put it right back in. It 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 to go in, and I could just feel it grinding on the bone, grinding against each other, and it was like making me fucking ill. And then they took me in, they took me in the locker room And I was fucking pissed cuz I knew it was gonna cost me a bunch of money That elbow deal was gonna cost me if I knew it probably cost me 20 million draw Fucking pissed my own teammate. He didn't mean to you know it's not yeah, But it was like on 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 blaming everybody Fucking refs. I'm gonna sue the fucking refs My turn all right, you know, yeah think and here's the other thing before games I was taking micro doses so I'm micro dosed and I might like full

Speaker 0: in mushrooms.

Speaker 1: Yes Yeah, yeah before games, so I'm taking mushrooms

Speaker 0: the Viking in you

Speaker 1: yeah, I'm fucking taking mushrooms and fucking Adderall Wow Before

Speaker 0: I play Yeah, what is that like mushrooms in Adderall

Speaker 1: dude the fucking focus is out of control. And I would just like, before games I would like, I would like get myself pissed off so I just would start thinking about my childhood, like the shit that I went through as a kid. Whoa. And they would fucking get me in this rage mode now it was like this crazy controlled rage.

Speaker 0: So Adderall, mushrooms and childhood rage. Yeah. All together in a 280 pound savage.

Speaker 1: Well I was like 300 pounds then

Speaker 0: you know. Oh my god.

Speaker 1: I was like 20 pounds heavier than I am now when I was playing oh my god just fucking such a meathead saying wild crazy shit to quarterbacks I told a guy I was gonna fucking eat his kids crazy he did he didn't say shit he never talked I played against this guy twice a year for 8 years and that was in year 4 that that happened. So 4 years straight he never said another word to me. Oh my god. He was like, this guy's a fucking sicko. Once I got married and had kids and stuff though, I was like, colded on saying shit like that.

But I just, that's what you do, man. It's a fucking head game.

Speaker 0: It's a head game.

Speaker 1: I'm trying to get in his head.

Speaker 0: Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I always try to explain that to people, people are like, Connor McGregor's a fucking asshole, the 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's strategy, it's unsuited to the art of war. It's strategy. It's the unsuited art of war.

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