Former San Diego Chargers quarterback Ryan Leaf has been released from a Montana prison this week, and is being suprervised by probation and parole officers in his hometown of Great Falls (population 59,351). Leaf served more than two years in prison for breaking into a home in 2012 to steal prescription pills. The break-in violated his probation in Texas on 2008 charges of fraudulently obtaining a controlled substance. In Texas, he was sentenced to five years but a judge gave him credit for time served. According to ESPN, “Texas authorities can still extradite Leaf if they choose.”
So what happened to one of the two best players available in the 1998 draft? (Peyton Manning was the other.) In his rookie year, Leaf screwed around, didn’t get along with his teammates and his game suffered. He tended to blame his teammates for his poor play, which wasn’t well received by anyone–especially the media. Before retiring in 2002, Leaf appeared in a total of 25 games. ESPN put Leaf first on its list of 25 biggest sports flops between 1979 and 2004. NBC Sports commentator Michael Ventre called him “the biggest bust in the history of professional sports”. Then, after his divorce from Charger cheerleader Nicole Lucia, he started to get in trouble with the law. Now a free man, at 38 years old, kicked the habit?
