New Orleans Saints Anthony Hargrove's Road to Redemption—New Orleans Style

You're Anthony Hargrove, one the best defensive lineman in football and one of its least famous.

On those steamy Saturday nights down in New Orleans, the French Quarter preachers are fond of shouting in front of houses of ill repute, "GOD IS REDEMPTION! GOD IS REDEMPTION!

And you walk past them and smile and think to yourself, maybe they aren't as crazy as they look. After your own trip to hell and back, how could you not feel redeemed yourself?

After all, there was a time when you hated your life and hated yourself even more.

You're mom died from AIDS complications when you were 9 and you never knew your father because he was never around and you bounced around from crummy foster home to crummy foster home and you thought to yourself, "Is this all there is to life?"

Nine damned years old! All the other kids are going to birthday parties and Disney World! Damned you! Damned you!

You finally settled at Aunt Gloria's house in Port Charlotte, Florida and you became a 220-pound quarterback at Port Charlotte High School. It was the age of big quarterbacks—and for the first time in your life you were a somebody.

You fancied yourself as the next Daunte Culpepper.

But Miami wanted you to play defense and Florida wanted you to play receiver and Florida State didn't even want you at all.

You were determined not to let those damned coaches switch you to defense; and then, you let those damned coaches switch you to defense.

By that time,you were so good at this game of football that Georgia Tech gave you a full scholarship to play defensive end.

You were a great defensive end for two years and then you failed out of Georgia Tech.

You went from thousands of fans cheering you on every Saturday night in Atlanta to security guard and baggage handler. Pretty damned humbling, and life had knocked you down once again.

You told anyone who would listen that you would play in the NFL one day and they laughed at you. Thought you had lost it. But all the while, you were putting yourself through spartan workouts when you weren't donning that security guard uniform.

After a two-year absence from the game, the St. Louis Rams drafted you in the third-round of the NFL draft and, well, nobody was calling you Mall Cop anymore.

Those jealous d*#*#...what did they know about you and your dreams?

You were a starter by your third year at St. Louis and then it all unravelled...You suddenly disappeared, missed practices, got benched, and got traded to Buffalo.

Hell, Buffalo! Buffalo in the Winter! Hell, you gotta be kidding me coach! Say it ain't so, will ya'? Say it ain't so, coach!

And then someone introduced you to your new best friend—cocaine.

Deep down you knew how stupid it was, you knew how dangerous it was, you knew how deadly it was...but it's such a seductive mistress.

After one arrest and two failed drug tests, the NFL suspended you for the entire 2008 season and your life had officially hit rock bottom.

Your choices were two: stay at rock bottom or fight your way back.

They tried to make me go to rehab but I said "no, no, no."

The man said "why do you think you here?"
I said "I got no idea"
"I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose my baby
So I always keep a bottle near"
He said "I just think you're depressed,"
This me "Yeah, baby, and the rest" 

After three months of NFL rehab and 10 additional months of advanced therapy, you made up your mind that you would face down life's many problems without drugs as your crutch.

Rehab saved your life but your career was in shambles.

Your agent sent a DVD to every team in the league. It wasn't a highlight video of you demolishing quarterbacks...it was you looking the audience in the eye and pleading for a second shot.

The early returns indicated failure until the New Orleans Saints called.

God is redemption you Bourbon Street heathens! My God is redemption!

Sean Payton felt secure enough in his position as head man of the Saints to give you a second chance. A less secure coach probably would not have given you that chance.

Yeah, there's something to be said for security and secure people. Too many damned nervous nellies in the world these days as far as your concerned...

In New Orleans, you met a crazy SOB...every bit as crazy as you...a coach named Gregg Williams and Gregg didn't give a rat's ass whether you played another down of football again, he just wanted to help save your life and you loved that crazy SOB!

You played your heart out for him. You would have taken a bullet for that crazy bastard. No way in hell were you gonna let down Gregg Williams.

It's Week Eight of the 2009 NFL season and you burst through the Carolina offensive line, force a fumble, and recover it for the winning touchdown to keep the Saints a perfect, 8-0. They name you the NFL Defensive Player of the Week and you are the first Saints player to win the honor in a decade.

During the Saints' Super Bowl run, you led the team in QB hurries, one of the most important and underrated stats in the game. You say it's because of Gregg Williams...You say it's because Williams is nuts and trusts you enough to let you take chances...You say it's because Sean Payton is as competitive as hell.

Coach Payton wants to win on Fridays in practice! A competitive little bastard!

The Super Bowl ring won't change you.

Life has humbled you way too many times for you to suddenly start thinking you're all that.

"He may do a lot of crazy things and say a lot of crazy things and you might ask yourself, what is he doing? But when you actually learn everything he's gone through, then you understand him as a person and see him in a different light. It just makes you like him even more," your teammate Will Smith tells a local reporter.

You hold yourself to a higher standard these days.

No, the Super Bowl won't change you.

You judge yourself by a statistic that will never show up on any NFL stat sheet—how many kids you save from a life where no hope exists.

You relate to those kids so well because you've travelled that lonely, dark road yourself and you were one of the lucky ones. You found redemption at the end of it.

"He's just a good guy with a nice attitude . He's always got a smile on his face, always a gentleman," says one of your fans to the local newspaper.

You never though during those dark days the little ol' ladies would love ya, but they do.

Amen and Amen.

You're Anthony Hargrove and you can't wait for the 2010 NFL season to start so you can line up in front of a guy and smash the hell out of him.