Darren Waller arrived in New York this past offseason with considerable expectations.
There already have been sinking lows and rising highs in the first two games of Darren Waller’s time with the Giants. Nothing will ever be as low as the time he almost lost his life.
Despite being rich at such a young league and playing the game that he loves, he has struggled with being unhappy.
He stated, “I thought that once I made it to the league, I’d be like, happy like my life couldn’t get no better. That wasn’t the case.”, on the 2nd Wind Podcast.
Waller also talked about overdosing on snorted pills in 2017 while serving a one-year suspension for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy:
(beginning at the 17:40 mark of the video)
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“I went to get out of the car and I felt like I was just gonna hit the ground, and I’m just like, ‘That’s gonna cause a scene.’ This is right around the corner from the Ravens’ facility. … I get back in the car and I’m just thinking, ‘All right, I’m just gonna come down from this and I’m gonna be straight.’ But then it’s just like somebody pulled the plug from behind the TV … I just laid my head back and then woke up and it was nighttime because I passed out in the daytime.
“I woke up night time, and it’s like I just sweated my whole body out and I was just cold and felt crazy. I don’t know what happened, but then you look back and process it through therapy and stuff, and it’s like, you OD’ed, you didn’t voluntarily take a nap there for like six hours.”
The sixth-round draft pick by the Ravens in 2015 had already been suspended twice for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy before making it to his third season. He added that overdosing was the wakeup call he needed in order to get help:
“I woke up from that and I feel like in that moment God had done enough to [make me say], ‘All right, I don’t really have control of this, I’ll at least go to rehab and see what this is like.’
“Before that, I always felt like I had control of everything like the joke’s on you, I’m in the facility doing everything high and you don’t know I’m high, but in reality, it’s controlling me, and that moment was the reality of that.”
Just before the 2018 season, he was reinstated and signed to the Ravens’ practice squad and was later signed off the practice squad by the Raiders where he spent the last five years before they shocked everybody this offseason and traded him.
One of his best years was 2019 when he exploded for 90 catches for 1,145 yards and three touchdowns. He was even better the following season as he racked up a career-high 107 grabs for 1,196 yards and nine touchdowns en route to his first Pro Bowl in 2020.
As for this year, Waller caught six of eight targets for 76 yards in Sunday’s 31-28 win over Arizona which required a major comeback for the team to secure their first win.
So far, he has nine receptions for 112 yards through two games.
